DIY Flexible keyboard without using silicone

Description

During the design of my new LCD 3D printer and resin development, one of the most interesting materials I have been experimenting with is this highly flexible resin, that 3D prints quite fast and keeps a very high detail.
I immediately started to think about many interesting projects based on this materials, including soft actuators, and a DIY flexible keyboard project, where instead of using silicone, this SLA highly flexible resin is used.
The benefit of this solution is that silicone parts are expensive and time consuming, while this method can lead to a nice build in very short amount of time.

Details

The front part is supposed to be 3D printed with flexible resin. Bare conductive ink is applied on the 3d printed "pill" that will be touching the PCB. A flexible PCB would allow a bendable, rollable keyboard.

Components

1 × Front flexible Keyboard part 3D printed with this resin: https://www.lumindustries.com/3dresins/lumireact-flex

1 × PCB (flexible)

Project Logs

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Creating the conductive "pills"
Madaeon • 04/29/2019 at 11:04 • 0 comments

By using bare conductive paste, after the 3d printed part is well cured and post processed.
Making of the flexible front part
Madaeon • 04/24/2019 at 17:42 • 0 comments

The front part has been designed, 3d printed and post processed.

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Discussions

Chris O'Riley wrote 05/08/2019 at 00:41

Very cool, judging from the photos, your printer looks outstanding!

Have you texted it with a functional PCB yet? I'm curious how the conductive ink will hold up with repeated pressing of the keys - how well does it adhere to the button part...

Definitely going to follow your work, as I've dreamed up more than a few projects that a custom keyboard would be required.

Are you sure? yes | no

karthik ram wrote 04/25/2019 at 06:52

Hi! I working on a robotics project... Check it out! Do drop a like too :P

https://hackaday.io/project/165046-autonomous-navigation

Are you sure? yes | no

DIY Flexible keyboard without using silicone

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Description

Details

Components

Project Logs Collapse logs

Creating the conductive "pills"

Making of the flexible front part

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