Gonna try something less drastic first. I’ll revisit this if needed!
Cue me asking another wildly odd question. As part of my work on converting the Frog Mini to EC, I’m now working on the issue of the spacebar stabilizer.
To avoid the need to dremel the stabilizer housings, keyboard case, or both, using MX stabilizers on the spacebar was mentioned as an alternative. It’d require further modifying the plate but I can manage it. That said, something has to give for the MX solution to work. Enter the bent stabilizer wire from Deskeys’ Matrix Falcon EC kit:
Here’s the issue: Those wires are not sold separately. Trust me, I asked. Short of me finding a short run wire forming service online, does anyone have any suggestions on where to start with getting these made? I realize I’m going to run into the issue of MOQ and cost effectiveness but I’ve exhausted the one option I had.
I could swear there’s a thread here somewhere about this, but I might be thinking of this one on GH:
I know you’re not the first person here to ask this question. There are precision wire-bending hand-tools, but it still seems as much art as science to me.
If you could find a relatively small manufacturer of wire-based products with modular or older manual equipment they might be able to do a small run for you.
This is exactly what I’m going to start with! I’m first going to attempt to modify 7u Costar wires to function with MX stabilizers. I’ve got a few on the way. Failing that (or maybe as a continuation of it, I’m going to try forming some by hand from bare wire.
For starters, I need to figure out tools and techniques - I feel like Walker had a video out there at some point that I need to track down.
I’m thinking something like that may be good. If it was just a typical stabilizer wire with two 90 degree bends then I’d attempt it with pliers but I think the additional allowance for the spacebar housing will make that too difficult to be consistent with. I’m going to try modifying Costar wires first and then we’ll see how things go from there.
