Amiga Keys

Are you looking to refresh your amiga keys change the unappealing yellow for something funky and new well you have come to the right place my friend.

design pricing

The Vision

Back in August 22 I had a dream of the A500, A600 and A1200 laid out in a concave in black, this got my idea juices flowing and was wonder why nobody had created some new keys amiga owners get their cases sprayed all different colours but the keys just don't look right when not in an original case if it's been sprayed it turned out you can "or up to this point anyways", but only in a single colour and the manufacturing run is very limited, knowing that it's incredibly expensive to get any industrial manufacturing on any scale so I looked into what was available to the average joe on the street.

3D Printing

3D Printing was one of the things that popped up more often than not. So, a few weeks later as I was in the process of undertaking some building work in my living room, I took the opportunity to digest all I could about 3D printing form YouTube and the printed word.

For the consumer market there is two choices FDM “filament” or SLA “Resin” printing I quickly ruled out FDM because of the quality of the print is not what we need for keycaps, so that left resin, after looking around for which make|model to purchase I finally settled on the Saturn 2 from Elegoo, it had just been released a few weeks earlier but the build volume was most important because of the Spacebar key been 7" in length.

Design

After a week or so of digesting the information I decided before I would buy any printer I needed to figure out how I was going to design a key, There are many 3D|CAD programs out there but as I had used Blender in the past 2.79 up to that point I would download and install the newest version I could get my hands on 3.22, since 2.79 blender had gone through a major redesign so I basically was starting again as it had been a couple of years since I opened it up.

The first buy for the project was a Digital Caliper, so I could get some accurate measurements from the original keys after a short while later I had a basic design I was happy with not knowing even if it would work or not.

Mid-September rolled around so I bought a 3D printer and a few items that go with it, not knowing that I would need a whole host of other materials and hardware to get it going successfully, even though I had spent a few weeks doing research on it.

Glyphs

As far as I'm aware when plastic keys are manufactured, they are injection moulded then and use a transfer of the glyph "the character" then a form of lacquer is used to over the key so the transfer does not peel off and protects the key.

These keys are designed and printed in such a way that the glyph is actually a part of the keys itself.

As you can imagine this has benefits and disadvantages, one advantage is the key should not ware out, and a disadvantage for me is I have to fill in every key by hand that’s around 91 keys on an A1200 give or take a few.

Colours

Currently there are a few colours to choose from Black, Dark Grey, Black & Dark Grey, White, Transparent Red, Transparent Blue, Clear, there is also a possibility of clear which has not been tested as of yet, this is from a different manufacturer, so my shrink at a different rate. It's also possible to Mix & Match, colours for example I had a request for Transparent Red F1-F10 keys with all others back on an A1200.

The Badges

While I was designing the keycaps, I turned my attention to the case and thought I better get some new badges.

I searched for badges that fitted with the design I was going for but couldn't get what I was looking for, for example I couldn't get a A500 in black or white well not in none bubble form, I even went down the route of emailing a seller but I got no reply so I set about designing and printing my own at the thickness of 1mm at the very least they would fit with the key colour.

In the process of doing that I thought I might as well go the hole hog and design the serial badge I know it's underneath but it feels more personal, hell you could even have something else on the badge "I'm not an artist" than a close rendition of your serial badge these are actually the machine numbers I used not randomly generated all bet with a slightly different font and larger text as I couldn't hand fill otherwise.

key Pricing

Black

£75

Full black keys with white characters keys

Dark Grey

£85

Full set of dark grey keys with white characters keys

Black & Dark Grey

£75

Black keys with Dark Grey keys mirrors the darker keys of the original keyboard.

White

£75

Full set of white keys with black characters keys

transparent red

£85

Full set of red transparent keys with white characters keys

clear

£85

Full set of clear keys with white characters keys

transparent blue

£85

Full set of clear keys with white characters keys

What happens next

1 The Process

As from the 23rd of September 2023, I'm feeling the waters if anybody is interested in having new keys for the A500, A500+, A600 and A1200.

If you are interested in new keys or custom colours you can email me with the following information Full name, Email to get in touch, Machine, Colours, Any Extra's or would like more information get in touch using the emails below.

2 The List

What I'm going to do is setup an Excel Sheet to clarify what people are interested in to purchase, this gives me an idea of what materials I'll need to buy.

Once I think I have enough feedback and I'm ready, I'll be contacting people on the list, in the order they provided me with the information "no cue jumping".

If and when you are contacted, I'll ask if you are still interested in the set(s) you want to purchase, if the set is a standard one "see possible colours", then I'll start the process if it's not "a standard set" then you may be asked to provide a percentage of the full cost involved "percentage is at my descension depending on the full cost and set(s) types"

3 The Options

1 1-2 Weeks

Pick Print and Pay and you will replace your own keys on your keyboard yourself under the instructions I've provided for the different machines.

2 1-2 Weeks

You can send me your keyboard where I will do the process for you this might incur as small handing fee, but all the hassle is taken out and it's over to me to do the hard work, you can sit back and will be contacted when it's done.

3 2-4 Weeks

You want "The full works" you want a machine resprayed, new gotek with 2.4" screen and new keys, as mentioned previously I work with Amiga Spirit to supply me with the Oled Screen and Gotek, everything else I do myself.

4 The Other Extra's

As mentioned previously I've teamed up with a local spray booth so you can get your stuff respayed the colour you want.

item	cost
Case	[£85.00 Black, Grey, White][£TBC Custom]
Shields [Both]	£30.00[£15.00 each]
Mouse	to be determined
Gotek [Screen Frame]	£8
Gotek [Bracket]	£5.50
Badges [Both]	£4[£1.50 front\|£2.50 back]

The 2.4" screen and gotek motherboard you see in the pictures are provided by Amiga Spirit we both produce a screen frame for the screen and a bracket for the gotek, they are slight differences if you are interested please ask about them.