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Old 11th Aug 2018, 2:23 pm   #79
SiriusHardware
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,484
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

The 'floating' keypad on my own MK14 - made only a few years after I originally got the MK14 - actually uses very low profile tact switches and low profile keytops, mainly to keep the height of the keys as low as possible. Full travel keys like cherry switches would be the ideal of course but they would be disproportionately tall on what is otherwise a fairly low profile PCB.

Although tact switches do feel very 'hard' and unyielding compared to proper full travel keyswitches they have the considerable advantage over PCB mounted dome switches or 'rubber squash' membrane keypads that they work every single time you press them.

Believe me, that is a big step forward from what the MK14 originally came with.

If you were going to do what people often did do back in the day, bury the MK14 PCB inside an enclosure and mount the keypad and the (often enlarged / upscaled) display on the front panel of the enclosure then a 'real' keypad with full size, full travel keys like the one on that Youtube example I linked to would be much preferred for sheer comfort and ease of use.
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