Clicky Test Keyboard

For the finished keys I’ll fill in the gaps in the legends

Me and Claude (well, mostly Claude) are making a Cyberdeck Keyboard. I’ve decided to use very cheap and tiny surface mount clicky switches underneath the keys. Which led to a concern. I was worried that if I put a long key (for example space bar) on top of the keyswitch the key would pivot if you pressed the edges and not trigger the switch. I wondered if it would be a good idea to mount long keys on two switches.

This is not the kind of thing that you can decide by just thinking about it so I asked Claude to make a mock PCB with spaces to insert the switches I’m using, and then build a test keyboard around it. You can see what I ended up with above.

There are two versions of each long key, one supported by two switches and the other supported by one. It turns out that the 4u key on a single switch works fine. The space bar tips when you press one end, but not far enough to stop the switch from registering. Using two switches actually makes things worse, as you seem to have to press both of them down to make the key work. And now I’ve got a nice little fidget toy to play with…..

Cyberdeck Keyboard

I’ve decided to try and make a keyboard for a Cyberdeck I’m building. I’m using Claude to do all the work. I want to use it to design a printed circuit board, case and 3D printable keys. The starting point will be a JSON file which describes everything. So I also need a design program. Claude “thought” for a while and came up with the above program. I showed it my programs for FreeCAD which make the wordsearch clock and told it to use that idea to make a keyboard design.

The keys printed out rather well. I’ve now asked for the design to be inverted so that I can print the keys with the text close to the print bed, which will make them a lot smoother. I’ve got a policy of not fiddling with what has been produced because I want to see how far AI can get on its own. So far it is doing very well.