Prototyping is absolutely essential to design workable and suitable products.
You can design beautiful products just with PC screen. Beauty is mainly about eyes. However workability and suitability is about hands.
Prototyping cost of flat (usual) keyboards is not expensive compared to other common gadgets. I think that the cheapest way is:
- design and order PCB, not assembled
- hand-solder switches and female headers for pro micro or something
- to save time and effort, no matrix diode
- after the evaluation, remove the switches by a solder sucker and reuse them to the next trial
The monetarily cost per iteration will be around 25 USD for 60% keyboard. The time and effort depend on the skill and equipment of hand soldering and solder sucking. Five seconds per through hole will be a good estimation for a mildly skilled and equipped person. For 61-key, ten minutes. About the initial cost, a good solder sucker is imperative and available from 150 USD. (You already have a good soldering iron, right?)
P2PPCB platform can be close to this. For example, 3D printing service cost of a 60% frame:
32.30 USD including the shipping cost. A matrix wire is 6 or 7 USD. Assembling and disassembling time per switch is about ten seconds. About the initial cost, P2PPCB starter kit is 139 or 149 USD. And matrix diode is for free!
Of course, P2PPCB is for 3D-shaped keyboards. The estimation above is valid as is for 3D-shaped design.
No comments:
Post a Comment