Transcript:
In this video? I’ll show you how I repaired and refurbished my favorite mechanical keyboard with 3d printing. In my opinion, repairing is always a better option than replacing. So let’s get started. This is my beloved quick-fire. TK. A mechanical keyboard by Coolermaster. It’s certainly not the best keyboard out there, but with its cherry. MX red mechanical switches. It’s seen me through many years and well. It’s had a pretty hard life Recently. The C key stopped responding and at this stage. Many people will probably just buy an upgrade, but why upgrade something that still mostly works most keyboards, disassemble the same way with a few screws in the back, taking note that some may be hidden under stickers. Might you have all them out? The case should come apart with some gentle convincing of the snaps. It’s highly likely your. PCB will be secured with a few additional screws. So remove those and you should have. The PCB and supporting plate assembly separated, taking care to also remove the USB plug PCB and not strain or break any wires. When investigating the faulty switch, it became instantly apparent that using screwdrivers to pry the key caps off would Mar them, possibly damage the switches and taken off a long time. Most people would order a key cap puller in this situation, but with the ongoing issues around shopping, online and deliveries. This is the perfect use case for 3d printing, and I found this key cap puller on Thingiverse uploaded by Mclovin which was perfect when it comes to 3d printing thin features. I like to find out what the wall Thickness required is and choose an extrusion width divisible by it. So for this model, it has 1.1 millimeter thick walls, So I increased my extrusion width from 0.48 to 0.55 leaving me with a perfectly sized thin wall without gaps or dodgy attempts at infill in between in addition to the C key, not responding, the keyboard is also full of year’s worth of filth with dust, having nowhere to go but accumulate inside, so this project will be a full restoration with clean repair and will 3d print a few new key caps after marking the suspects, which I pulled out my multimeter and tested continuity as expected Nothing. It was open circuit and I couldn’t get contact no faulty diodes either, so its most likely suffering from gunked-up contacts to clean electrical contacts. You wish it use a dedicated contact cleaner such as this one from WD-40, but with full a solution? I only had a little bit of isopropyl alcohol from my resin 3d printers available. Now, in your case, it’ll probably be easier for you to get contact cleaner. Then the isopropyl currently, but either way, apply a few drops or a quick spray into the switch and depress vigorously to dislodge any gunk and soak up any excess with a paper towel now. I was fully prepared to source a spare switch and solder it in. But amazingly, this little process was all. It took to fix, so if your mechanical keyboard is suffering from a faulty switch or to give this a go, you might be surprised and you don’t even need to disassemble it to get it working again, but I have lots more to do to bring this keyboard up to spec, so it’s now cleaning time. I took a photo reference and pulled every last key cap off. I didn’t use anything special to wash the parts Just warm water and detergent. Some particularly nasty keys, though, didn’t need additional scrubbing, so I designed this little holder to assist me on holding on to the key caps easier while cleaning them a sub 5-minute print. I should have made the base a little bit larger, but it did the job. This was the cheapest mechanical keyboard with cherry. MX red switches. I could buy at the time. So the key caps are pretty average. The legends are actually just masked off with black paint and they are wearing off in some places, especially around the wsad keys something. I’ve always wanted to try is 3d printed key caps and I found this awesome model by Jonathan on grab card. Who was kind enough to also upload the fusion 360 project file while he did design it with resin 3d printing in mind. I really want to stick with low cost filament 3d printing, and I want to see if it was even possible to 3d print fully-functional key caps on a machine like the reality and the 3 I modified, he’s already excellent designed to have a greater wall thickness up the thickness of the central column, as much as possible, allowing for some clearances and flatten the inside of the key cap, allowing for bridges without support material When it comes to 3d printing delicate objects like this, a few slow tweaks are required similar to the key puller. You want to choose an extrusion width and number of parameters to create a solid uniform shell. I never supports for the internal column only with no supports for bridged areas because the top surface of the key has a very subtle contour. I took advantage of prison. Slice’s, variable layer height workflow, so I used a universal 0.2 millimeter layer height, which has made finer at the top using the variable layer Heights. Finally, I wanted a solid feel it. I could sand back a little if required, so I maximized top soiled layers and went with a concentric fill pattern for a cleaner look and 100% solid plastic. This keyboard only has a red backlight. So I figured this translucent red filament would work nicely, honestly. I thought it was PLA initially. I can’t even remember where I got it from. But after the parts came out, weak and opaque. I figured it’s actually probably PT G. So I increased temperature to 240 degrees Celsius, which gave me a strong print with a little bit of stress at the top now. Although the rough printed texture is actually pretty cool for a key cap. The astreus was a bit messy, so I took some wet sandpaper to them. And this was the result. Reassembly was almost as easy as taking the thing apart, using my reference to replace all the key caps, including the new wsad 3d printed replacements. I am honestly shocked. How well this thing scrubbed up for? What really wasn’t all that much work? Considering how much time we spend using them? Keyboards are actually quite a personal item, and I’m stoked that a repair was so incredibly easy. So I encourage you to stop and think. Next time. One of your favorite items break doesn’t really need to be replaced in my opinion is always worth trying to fix something first. Now you obviously don’t need a 3d printer to do this kind of thing. But having access to a basic unit, the end of three is only $200 us. You can use it to turn this into all kinds of things from tools to replacing parts in the comfort of your own home at any time here on makers. Muses my aim to empower your creativity through technology. So if you found this video interesting, then maybe consider subscribing. I’m actually pretty interested to see how a keyboard would look with entirely 3d printing key caps. They’re not sure how I would go with. Legends could be interesting. Let me know in the comments. What you think. But anyway, there’s plenty more content coming in future. Thanks for watching guys bye.