I have a custom layout on a 42 keyboard heavily inspired from Bépo with multiple layers made for typing French, English and fast access to special characters. So I'm pretty doomed in terms of finding adapted keycaps in the wild. I could get basic letters only but having blank keycaps right now I'm afraid it would mess with muscle memory if only one layer is printed. Is there a way to get fully customized keycaps somewhere? Thanks!

Edit: lots of useful answers within a few minutes, thanks r/olkb for being that great!

These are pretty common (example images from google):

So they include printed images on every side, keycaps colored in a specific palette and potentially a custom font for the symbols (but the first one is most important).

I found some sites like goblinkeys or diykeycaps that could work, but they don't quite offer exactly what I want: all options online deal with column-staggered keyboards, while I'd like an ortholinear one.

So I expect I'll likely have to somehow do this myself.
(I haven't decided yet whether to use choc or MX keycaps - the former ones' sides are very small, which could distort the image ... or make the whole thing simpler to make.However, no one offers the character I'm interested in.)

Some options I've considered were:
- designing and printing out wide-cross-shaped stickers wouldn't be too hard (aside from mine not being sure how to stretch the image on the sides, exactly), but they might get dirty with use and feel not as nice as raw keycaps
- buying a dye sublimation printer and trying to use that, but I've heard the images printed on keycaps with that method wear out with time - this is fine if I were to just print icons on the keycaps, but likely unacceptable for a bigger artwork like this; and also, I'm not sure if they can be aligned properly that way
- printing them on normal paper and using "relegendable" keycaps, but they look quite ugly so probably not an option.

What could I do to achieve this? Have you had a similar project before? How do random sellers on etsy and such do this, without the images wearing off?
Any ideas? Help would be much, much appreciated!

I am looking to buy a Cloud 9 keycap but I cannot find it. So I am looking for the cheapest and most reliable company to go to for custom printed keycaps similar to this http://imgur.com/a/Wk5o5

Edit: Fix link

I thought I would share the keycaps that I printed for my keyboard in case anyone else is interested in DIY keycaps. I wanted to make sure that they didn't fade before I posted them. It's been a year and there has been very little fading. The attached photos are from my main keyboard that I use everyday.

I've tried dry erase markers, plastic dye, and sharpies, but they all had issues. I have found Cricut Infusable Ink Markers to be the longest lasting and easiest to work with.

The process - I colored a keycap using an Infusable Ink marker. I placed the keycap in a jig I created. I used Inkscape to create images for each keycap and uploaded the images to my laser engraver software. The engraver settings (power and depth / speed) are different for each color, so its trial and error. Once the engraver is done, I wiped the marker off with nail polish remover.

EDIT: Added images in post.

Like the title says. I want to print out keycaps with the "Comfortaa" font, but can't find any keycaps online, or anyone that will laser etch out some with my custom font. If anyone knows a website where you can make your own keycaps or a manufacturer that has keycaps with the comfortaa font on it, please let me know, I really love that font!

Hello guys,

I wanted to build a new keyboard, using the quefrency pcb from Keeb.io or Candykeys. But my problem is, that I can't get into the ANSI layout, because if I want to type Umlaute I either have to use WinCompose or the German Windows Input, wich makes me typing almost blind (It's even more confusing for me as I have to ignore the existing letters on them).

That's why I wanted to ask if there is an option to get custom printed keycaps, so I can use the Units of the ANSI layout (with the flat ANSI Enter and stuff) while having German characters on the caps.

I'm looking forward to ur answers!

I found a key cap generator online and have started using to it to generate custom key caps to use on my macro pads. The creator also posted a bunch of caps generated by it but didn't include any media keys, so I got it working through significant effort (bugs in the code) and started creating my own using any icon from material design icons. Still working on a full writeup on setting everything up and running it.

Some of my caps (still have more to upload) https://www.printables.com/model/1037546-multi-color-media-keycaps

Original set created by the generators' creator https://www.printables.com/model/399607-complete-cherry-mx-stem-keycap-set-optimized-for-3

The generator: https://github.com/riskable/keycap_playground

Before my health made me decide to close down my store, the project I was most excited about perfecting was my process for custom dye sub PBT keycaps. So I figured Id post my process here in hopes y'all guys can make good use of it

Materials:

• Blank PBT keycaps This is the best deal I've found

• Your layout

• A hair straightener

• Your software of choice for making the designs

• Either a Dye sublimation printing service on Etsy or an EPSON SureColor F170

• Kapton Tape

• Silicone Oven Mitts

Procedure:

• Cut the oven mitt and use Kapton tape to secure it to the flat iron so the keycap will not come into direct contact with the heating plates.

• Cut out the legends and tape them onto the keycap (With Kapton tape as well)

• Power on the Iron to whichever setting gets you closest to 220C to 240C

• Get some gloves (you may not think you'll need them but trust me, the silicone holds heat absurdly well and will give you some nasty burns. )

• Place the keycap on the iron and press very firmly!! Hold it for roughly 90 seconds to two minutes

• Carefully remove the keycap and let it cool

• Remove the paper and check out your new keycap!!

For those ambitious enough to consider taking something like this on at a bigger scale, from my tests a t-shirt press actually works incredibly well if you can find a big enough piece of silicone for each sides, soldering desk pads are a great source of this!

You can also 3d print cherry stems into a plate out of a high temp plastic to allow many keycaps to be done at once! DO NOT USE ABS. I learned the hard way it gets way too soft at those temperatures.

Feel free to discuss your ideas! Id love to hear them!

Hi r/mk, apologies if this is already known by all, but I was wondering if it is possible to buy custom printed keycaps, but only for specific keys. What I mean is, I'd like to buy three Backspace keys (each with different prints) as well as a a bunch of top-row number keys (each with different prints). As a usual 104 set of keycaps only comes with one backspace key, would I have to buy three whole sets of 104?

In the process of building my next board (hillsideview46) and I’ve been using a friend’s lily58 from Typeractive (choc with choc spacing). I’ve discovered that MBK on choc spacing really doesn’t work for me, I need some space between my keys. So, I was able to get some 3D printed LPX keycaps (https://github.com/levpopov/LPX) to try and resolve this, and it worked great! I feel much more comfortable and confident with my typing now.

However, the texture of the caps is very odd. They’re very slick, almost slippery, and I really don’t like how easy it feels for my fingers to shift around on them. I believe they’re printed out of PETG.

So, finally getting around to my question: those of you with 3D printed keycaps, have you experienced similar issues? How have you been able to resolve them? Print material, finishing, etc etc

Does anyone have a 3d file to create custom keycaps for a keychron k4 v2?

I'm looking for a custom keycap configuration tool that includes layout and profile.

I want shine through PBT keycaps with a proper profile, not all OEM 3, or flat DSA or whatever. It looks like most people with Ergo keyboards, especially the most custom ones, are relegated to using a flat profile with blank caps.

It would require 4 times the moulds at most compared to a regular QWERTY set of moulds since every letter could potentially be R1-R4. Maybe you could do the same for numbers if you have a custom numpad layout. For all the special keys you could have blanks with a bit of shine through similar to ZSA's moonlander keycaps. It would also be nice to be able to buy those blanks in multiple sizes in bulk-ish. Like 16 1u, 1.5u and 4 2u or something and still be able to choose the profile perhaps. Since they're shine through, you'd also need to keep in mind compatibility with north and south facing LEDs.

I use the Workman layout on th ZSA Moonlander, but this would apply to any layout and board. You could start out with just 1 font to keep the # of moulds down, and increase to other fonts and special characters later.

I touch type, but my fingers aren't always on home row. I want the legends if I'm working on something esle and not facing my keyboard.
I have multiple layers that effect the colour. Shine through makes it easier for me to see what layer I'm in if I've made a misclick.

Is this a pipe dream? Can I not have my cake and eat it too?
Is flat profile better for ergonimics anyway and should I forget this dream?

I really liked the Anne Pro 2 keycaps, in which you have the main function of the keys top printed and the secondary functions side printed, but I just can't find these kind of keycaps anywhere, do they even sell it?

Hello!

I was wonder where I could order high quality mx cherry keycaps for a 60% keyboard.

Somewhere I can send an image and layout I would like and they print the design on them?