I’m wondering, if any one has attempted doing single shot keycaps, with indents for the legends or engraved legends, then infilled them with a 3d printer…
I would think, that this would allow for a setup, where you place an order for a set of keycaps, pick your colors, then the place that you order them from, can just pick the appropriate pre-made keycap color, then print the legends (they could be mounted in a tray / jig, that the 3d printer would be setup for), in their desired color.
I’d assume, depending on the materials used and the depth of the engraving / 3d printing, that kaycaps manufactured in this way, would be of a similar or close to the durability of double shot keycaps.
I have no experience with 3D printing, so I don’t know if this is possible. It’s more of a thought experiment, that popped into my head, while thinking about how nice it would be to have / add custom number pad legends, to my alpha keys, like the think pads of yesteryear.
I’ve designed some keycaps that had the legends inset. I then used paint to fill them in. I’m not sure a 3D printer would work well to fill them in. The legends themselves are pretty small and then since they aren’t very deep I think they would come out easily. The final issue is that the hot plastic might melt the keycaps.
All that being said, even if this was a feasible way to do custom keycaps you still wouldn’t have legend flexibility since they would be part of the mold.
It’s more so about manufacturing cost, availability, and color compatibility. Sub legends, could be achieved through engraving, and I believe the desired effect, would be for the infill to fuse, with the keycap.
seems like there would be a lot of variables that would make this either really expensive or low quality. I’d be curious to see someone try, but I personally wouldn’t go down this path.
My dad was an engraver in the 90s and he used to engrave keycaps for use in the military, missile silos and things or that nature so they had to be pretty resilient. he’d engrave them with a motorised cutter then infill them with a paint of some sort and then give them a rub down with some sort of thinner with a very silky rag material. I might quiz him on it tomorrow, I was only about 8 when I witnessed this
You could potentially 3D print (FDM or resin) a keycap with the legend and/or sub-legend engraved, then fill in the indents with a different color of 3D printer resin. It would be a mess and you would have to sand the keycap after it cures though.
