Tidbits of Junana

1u / Convex 1u can do 16 mm pitch

The figure below is the footprint of Junana 1u. Yes you can make 16 mm pitch keyboards with Junana 1u.

Common 1u keycaps' width is 18 mm. 1 mm gap is normal. Junana's 1.7 mm gap is large. This design is partly for 16 mm pitch, and partly for ergonomic-looking keyboards. You can rotate neibouring two 1u keycaps up to 10° on 17 mm pitch keyboards.

Why 17 mm pitch?

It comes from the stiffness of P2PPCB frame. Narrower pitch means less stiffness. With Kailh Choc V2 17 mm pitch, the gap between switches is 3.05 mm. It is almost the limit. So you can make 16 mm pitch keyboards by common way (steel plate or PCB mount).

Spheroid-ish top

Have you carefully looked at common keycaps? Sherlock Holmes said "You see, but you do not observe." Please pick up an Cherry or OEM profile ZXCV row keycap, and look at the left / right sides. Is it straight? No, it is curved. Have you ever recognized it?

Keycaps' shape is a large and deep domain.

Cherry and OEM profile has cylindrical top. It is good for dye sublimation (IBM Model F is the earliest one). The trend went to cylindrical top in 1980s, and 40 years later (now), spherical top is in fashion.

If you have cylindrical and spherical ones both, please compare the curve. Cylindrical top has much larger curvature than spherical top. It comes from the shape of human fingers. Human fingers are alike cylinder. If spherical top has large curvature like cylindrical top, the near edge of keytops bites your finger.

Is small curvature OK? Almost everything is OK in this industry because you will adapt almost everything soon, hahaha... Yes, OK, but I am not happy enough with it. It makes the look of keyboards dull.

The top shape of Junana is not spheroid, spheroid-ish. It has another long story. BTW in P2PPCB parts model it is modelled as spheroid for faster computation.