Hello all,
I am considering making keyboards customized to look like they belong in our ship cockpits.
I would be taking a bit of artistic license, but these would be one off creations, so there would be a bit of time needed to design, assemble and provide these.
At the moment I'm asking if anyone would be interested, and I will start designing if folks sound interested.
I would be laying out my costs as I produce these. I haven't yet decided how much to charge for the labor I'd be exerting to design and assemble these. I will only start taking orders once I've gotten the initial design considerations addressed, cost of key switches, circuit board fabrication, cost of 3D printing the keycaps, cost of laser cutting the acrylic for the enclosure, LEDs and microcontroller used for keyboard control are all cost considerations, something I will break down fully once I get enough support to decide this is something I want to do for people.
While I would like to eventually offer custom keyboards, initially I would likely start with a keyboard designed to look very similar to the in-game keyboards seen in our cockpits:
This keyboard would be a standard USB compatible keyboard made from custom circuits, not taking an existing keyboard and modding it. The keyboard could be, based on interest, a standard or a custom keyboard with added features, such as some display of information or a tweaked layout that better suits Elite: Dangerous depending on feedback.
While I am still shopping for high quality keyswitches, I do feel a mechanical switch would serve my fellow player the best. The switches I choose will be selected based on quality of motion under finger and rated lifetime in presses with a minimum of 50K keypresses rated.
The microcontroller currently being considered is a Freescale Semiconductor MK20DX256VLH7, an ARM Cortex M4 processor found on the Teensy 3.1 development board. I will also be considering support hardware as needed, and all the LEDs involved will be WS2812B SMD mount RGB LEDs.
The hardware choice is influenced partially by my existing cache of development hardware and hardware that is easy to acquire for software research and development.
I plan on using a 3D Printing service able to do high detail acrylic plastic for the keyboard caps, with acrylic sheets laser cut to size for the bulk of the construction. I would also have access to several materials for metal, wood, fabric or leather, based on the laser cutting house's available material inventory.
The circuit board would be a PCB panel which will be manually populated and assembled. Think of this as my desire to make the Rolls Royce of keyboards for Elite: Dangerous, or if interest is broad enough, a gamer's own taste.
Any profit I make off of these would go toward making my own Elite: Dangerous cockpit, and providing future accessories and inputs based on my experience creating said cockpit. Long term goal is to provide custom equipment for flight stick and throttle that also match the Elite: Dangerous ship cockpit layout and provide quality of craftsmanship. I intend to only produce equipment of quality I would be proud to use myself.
While I know I may sound like I'm promising a lot, I'd like to point out that at this point I'm basically doing a bit of market research by asking what people think. I do have engineering experience, both electrical and mechanical, and this would be an accessory by a player, for players.
I welcome direct messages for questions and comments related to this, as well as replies to this thread.
I am considering making keyboards customized to look like they belong in our ship cockpits.
I would be taking a bit of artistic license, but these would be one off creations, so there would be a bit of time needed to design, assemble and provide these.
At the moment I'm asking if anyone would be interested, and I will start designing if folks sound interested.
I would be laying out my costs as I produce these. I haven't yet decided how much to charge for the labor I'd be exerting to design and assemble these. I will only start taking orders once I've gotten the initial design considerations addressed, cost of key switches, circuit board fabrication, cost of 3D printing the keycaps, cost of laser cutting the acrylic for the enclosure, LEDs and microcontroller used for keyboard control are all cost considerations, something I will break down fully once I get enough support to decide this is something I want to do for people.
While I would like to eventually offer custom keyboards, initially I would likely start with a keyboard designed to look very similar to the in-game keyboards seen in our cockpits:
This keyboard would be a standard USB compatible keyboard made from custom circuits, not taking an existing keyboard and modding it. The keyboard could be, based on interest, a standard or a custom keyboard with added features, such as some display of information or a tweaked layout that better suits Elite: Dangerous depending on feedback.
While I am still shopping for high quality keyswitches, I do feel a mechanical switch would serve my fellow player the best. The switches I choose will be selected based on quality of motion under finger and rated lifetime in presses with a minimum of 50K keypresses rated.
The microcontroller currently being considered is a Freescale Semiconductor MK20DX256VLH7, an ARM Cortex M4 processor found on the Teensy 3.1 development board. I will also be considering support hardware as needed, and all the LEDs involved will be WS2812B SMD mount RGB LEDs.
The hardware choice is influenced partially by my existing cache of development hardware and hardware that is easy to acquire for software research and development.
I plan on using a 3D Printing service able to do high detail acrylic plastic for the keyboard caps, with acrylic sheets laser cut to size for the bulk of the construction. I would also have access to several materials for metal, wood, fabric or leather, based on the laser cutting house's available material inventory.
The circuit board would be a PCB panel which will be manually populated and assembled. Think of this as my desire to make the Rolls Royce of keyboards for Elite: Dangerous, or if interest is broad enough, a gamer's own taste.
Any profit I make off of these would go toward making my own Elite: Dangerous cockpit, and providing future accessories and inputs based on my experience creating said cockpit. Long term goal is to provide custom equipment for flight stick and throttle that also match the Elite: Dangerous ship cockpit layout and provide quality of craftsmanship. I intend to only produce equipment of quality I would be proud to use myself.
While I know I may sound like I'm promising a lot, I'd like to point out that at this point I'm basically doing a bit of market research by asking what people think. I do have engineering experience, both electrical and mechanical, and this would be an accessory by a player, for players.
I welcome direct messages for questions and comments related to this, as well as replies to this thread.
