I updated the 3D-printed keycaps for my Mantis v0.3 keyboard to create more sculpted keywells that require less finger movement for typing.
Thanks to the rotation of the switches on the PCB, this needs only two different keycap profiles, a flat one with 15° tilt of the dish, very similar to the keycaps I had printed for the first prototype, and a tall one with 28° tilt.
The flat keys are used on the home row, the outer pinky key and most thumb keys. The tall ones are used on the remaining keys. I'm not quite happy with the rotation of the inner index finger keys with the taller key profile. Fixing that will require a revision of the PCB, if I want to keep the number of distinct key profiles to just two.
I was able to print these keys very cost-effectively at JLCPCB, by joining 10 keys in a single 3D object. For the flat keys it brings the cost down to 30 cents per key. This leads to more imperfections than printing individual keys, but they are mostly cosmetic and don't affect the usability. The savings are worth it for me to make several prototype keyboards cost effectively.
The updated 3D models, including 10-key versions are on GitHub.
Yeah, I wasn't really happy with the height and sharp edge of the taller keys. The latest version flattens that a bit. It still has the lower half a spherical dish facing the key well, but flattens out above that. This makes it more versatile as a thumb key as well.
https://github.com/fxkuehl/mantis/raw/main/assets/mantis-v0.3-leds.jpg
https://github.com/fxkuehl/mantis/blob/main/keycap/keycap-v3-28.stl