this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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Mechanical Keyboards

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Are you addicted to the clicking sounds of your beautiful and impressive mechanical keyboard?
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Here you can discuss everything about mechanical keyboards (and only mechanical keyboards).

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Manufacturer wanted $25 (+shipping) for a replacement garage door opener wall switch. 13 minutes of printing + 5 minutes of soldering + two leftover Cherry MX Blue switches (that I'll be use) and the problem is solved ๐Ÿ‘

Note: The wiring was slightly more involved than I thought... needed a resistor for the light (there's only two wires but it's got two functions: Light on/off and garage open/close.

If folks are interested I could make a much fancier PCB-based version with screw terminals and whatnot. It's a very trivial schematic.

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[โ€“] riskable@programming.dev 5 points 1 year ago

It's inside the garage so water isn't an issue.

Having said that I would have no trouble at all making a version of this that's waterproof! For that though I'd make a PCB and use my own magnetic key switches (Void Switch)...

https://youtu.be/iv6Rh8UNWlI?si=HLxDopztmpPDVTVI

When I made that keyboard for Chyros I asked him if he wanted it to be waterproof and he said no so I never bothered but it's not very difficult to do such a thing when your entire keyboard is contactless.

The "key" is to use waterproof connectors or just solder the wires directly to the PCB. Then you just coat the whole thing in silicone sealant (or similar e.g. seal it with epoxy, Flex Seal, etc). The chips don't care and hall effect sensors will still work just fine through any non-ferromagnetic coating (e.g. any plastic or hydrocarbon-based material).