Ah, I see. Just took a look at the Monarch. Really beautiful.
For all those of you not living in the US or CA, respectively, here it is:
For the European and Asian market, Aglais io might be an alternative name for the next Keyboardio model.
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For the record, I mean the $10 Pi Zero W.
Just wanted to give a quick update regarding a couple improvements to my clamp setup. First off, I rebuilt them using some scrap cherry I had lying around:
The cherry is much nicer looking, and using a hardwood I was unafraid to make the strips thinner. I could probably go even thinner, but as it is my wrists don’t notice they’re there.
One small mistake I made with this rebuild was going with too small a diameter with the counterbores for the bolt heads. It’s a nicer appearance, but there’s no room to get your ratchet in there to tighten or loosen the bolts. I solved this by adding washers thick enough to leave the bolt heads slightly proud of the surface so the ratchet can grab on. I suppose it’s not a mistake so much as a trade-off (an unplanned one). The slightly proud bolt heads don’t interfere in the ergonomics at all, and as far as appearance, I think I prefer the smaller counterbores.
Lastly, but most importantly in this update… after rebuilding these a couple weeks ago, I came to realize a major source of instability in the original design. Fixing the camera mounts to the outside face of the bottom strips would cause two problems:
- Some slight wobble when typing or using the trackpad, depending on positioning
- Gradually over time, losing the position of the keyboard half or trackpad (how fast again depending on positioning) until the change becomes noticeable enough to make you stop your work and adjust the setup back to the original positions
The reason for this is obvious after some use. The camera mounts are fastened by threads screwed into t-nuts embedded into the clamp. The downward force applied to the keyboard or trackpad would translate into some amount of torsion about the axis of the threads. In simpler terms, you’d either be tightening or loosening that mounting point as you used the devices, and no amount of wrenching the nut included in the camera mount against the t-nut to lock it into place seemed sufficient to counteract this.
A few days back I realized that this problem could be solved by embedding the t-nuts into the bottom of the clamp. This way, the downward force from normal use of the keyboard or trackpad would not cause any turn on the screw threads. The excellent camera mounts I linked previously in this thread allowed me to do this without losing any appreciable range of adjustability.
That said, it might create a tendency for the t-nuts to be pulled out of the clamp. For that, I would need t-nuts with holes which allowed me to really fix them in place with some tiny screws. Something like this:
Here’s a photo showing precisely what I mean by mounting at the bottom as opposed to the outside face (note the hole where this was previously mounted before I recognized the problem):
This setup is now sturdy as ever! Now to rest on my laurels for a long time, I hope. That is, until I get the urge to add a cup holder to this chair…
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Re grip tape on one of the thumb keys, this thread shows how I made one of the thumb keys stand out better: Keycap suggestions (scroll down a bit for the photo). The grip tape looks a lot easier to apply, though.
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One more small improvement I just made that would be useful for anyone using camera mounts with their Keyboardio. Over time with steady use, I would find that both threaded ends of my mounts would eventually start turning no matter how much I tightened them, including with the improvement in my reply above (which was still an effective improvement on its own).
About a week ago, I tried adding Loctite Threadlocker Blue (Removable) to each of the mount points. This worked splendidly. I added just a drop of Loctite on the threads, then screwed them back in and gave them the 10-20 minutes of set time. This greatly improved the situation. So far I haven’t had any issue with the mounts loosening since this treatment, and the setup feels more much stable as a result.
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@cvincent - One other option is to find a mount intended for a larger camera which includes a locking pin. That’s what the little hole next to the screw is for. It’s part of the ISO standard, so should be fairly consistent between different mounts.
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Ahh that’s a great idea, I always wondered what the other hole was for. Maybe I’ll go looking for new mounts, though I did have to look pretty hard to find the ones I’ve got, which could really only be improved by adding a locking pin. And surely I could also modify the armrest clamps to accept a locking pin as well…something to think about! For the time being though, the Loctite is working very well.
What size did you get for the t-nut with holes? And did you drill a hole at the top of the bottom piece and put the t nut for the camera mount through it? Thanks and great work