>> Yeah, it was a misdirection. Uh but nevertheless,
nevertheless,
>> the wrong information.
>> Uh you know, it's I often say
particularly about the stabilizer
project like had I known what would be
involved in getting to the place where
we got I would just have abandoned
keyboards on the spot. >> Wow.
>> Wow.
>> Um just because of the the ciruitous
path. But it it emboldened me I think
you know injection molding. Okay, I got
this. No, no problem. So the I had this
vision for a keyboard completely built
from the ground up where every single
component is custom tailored to what we
as keyboard enthusiasts have come to
know makes a keyboard sound and feel
great or at least my subjective
expression of the perfect keyboard. And
so because of my sort of naive ambition
and being emboldened by the heavy girl
project, I'm like this can't be a hard
problem to solve. Surely like this
rattle problem is just like factories
making these at very large scale are
probably just being lazy with the
tolerances, right? Like this just
they're being sloppy. All you have to do
is like tighten up the tolerances.
Surely it'd be fine, right? They just
hadn't thought of it, right? And so I um
I experimented with different like
fundamentally different approaches. So
the first one was the most naive and
stupid. It was so the idea was you just
take these dryland bearings. Are you
familiar with dryland?
>> No. It's a It's a thermoplastic that has
lubricant uh sort of baked into the
material so that as the material araides
away, it actually uh releases lubricant
and it becomes smoother over time.
>> So wear and tear actually uh improves
its performance to a certain
>> Exactly. And so I'm like well a a
stabilizer is basically a linear
bearing, right? Right. Um, and so what
would happen if we just took the these
two stems and we put very precision
machined cylinders in there. Sure. All
right. And you put them through these
holes. You got a linear bearing. It
moves up and down. It's smooth. No
problem. Well, um, of course I I tried
this out. I I found a company that does
very precision machining of small parts
in like Louisiana or Alabama or
something. And it took them 3 months to
make the parts for me. It was $2,000. I
got like a handful of them. And you
know, I put them in my precision machine
fixture with these dryland bearings. You
push it down and of course it just
doesn't pop back up. I'm like, hm,
that's interesting. Um, that didn't
work. Um, and so what I didn't realize
at the time and subsequently learned is
whenever you have a linear bearing, the
what's known as the diameter, which is
the spacing between the contact points
and the length, uh, relates to the
quality of the slide. So if you have
like the perfect bearing is a is a long
sleeve over a cylinder, right? Because
uh it's there's a long uh space between
the two contact points and the diameter
is small relative to the uh to the
slide. Um but you can think of a a worst
case scenario is if you had like a short
sleeve, right, and another short sleeve
between two widely spaced poles, it's
going to bind immediately.
>> It's going to it's going to rack.
There's almost no way to get it to
mechanically not bow here because the
lever arm is too long.
>> Yeah. It's known as the moment arm. So,
the more distributed away from one of the
the
>> uh contact points, the more force is put
on it and the more it's going to like
take it out of line and and cause binding.
binding.
>> Well, a stabilizer because we want
keyboards to be thin is like the worst
case scenario for the bearing ratio
because it's a very short travel, very
widely spaced, especially on a space
bar. But one of the ways you solve a
problem of a badly, you know, a
problematic bearing is you just put
loose fits, right? So, um, >> right,
>> right,
>> it gives you
>> keep you you remove the binding.
>> You remove the binding, right? Wow.
>> And so, as I would later learn,
>> there's kind of like a trio of things
you can have. You can have free movement,
movement,
>> you can have good acoustics, uh, and or
you can have a combination of keycap uh,
width variability. So that's another
problem with this is these these two
space bars are made by different
companies. Yeah. And so the spacing
between these stems is going to be a
little bit different always. Especially
for long you know injection molded
polymers like this the shrinkage rate is
hard. Sure. Sure. Right.
>> And so any stabilizer that works has to
be able to accommodate uh you know like
a millimeter difference. Right.
>> And so as a result if you tighten up
those interfaces it binds. Right. So you
can have you can have one of those three
or two of those three things. You can
have free movement, good acoustics or um
a combination of space bar variability
because I started making my own
stabilizer housings and sliders like this.
this.
>> Oh god.
>> And I made I you know I bought a foreign
labs printer and then I uh got a lot of
like super high resolution prints from
uh Protolabs. Like a handful of these is
$2,000. They I even tried stuff like
over molding the wire in rubber like
this cuz that's that's where the contact
point is with the slider that creates rattle.
rattle.
>> Right. Right.
>> But the over molding like the
temperature of the overmolding does
something to the metal
>> and it throws out the tolerance just enough
enough >> what
>> what
>> that it will cause binding.
>> I'm sorry for yelling, but that's crazy.
>> That's that's how sensitive this system
is to the slightest change. Right. So
it's not by accident that these that
this slop is here, right? Right. It's
because they would it wouldn't work
otherwise. So eventually I realized this
and I realized that this is a problem
beyond me as a you know a tinkering
industrial designer who barely knows
mechanical engineering. So I just saw
somewhere on YouTube I think it was uh
Veritasium is that you know he has this
had a video about compliant mechanisms.
>> Yes I love that one.
>> And uh you know this is an example of a
compliant mechanism. It's a hinge, a
living hinge that has no separate parts,
>> right? One It's a one piece,
>> right? And so you can create all these
surprisingly complex movements with
injection molded or plastic or even
metal flexures. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And I'm like, well, conceptually, that's
the solution to our problem. We need to
get rid of rigid bodies banging against
each other. Yes.
>> Right. So maybe I could find somebody
who knows how to do this in compliant
mechanisms. Um, and so I did a lot of
Googling and I found a company in
Denmark called RD8, uh, which does like
I would say sort of luxury consumer
product engineering consulting. They
done stuff for Aldi. They they when the
people at LEGO have a hard engineering
problem, they go to these guys.
>> Oh yeah. Okay. There you go. They know
what they're doing. Um, they're very
expensive, but they had an article about
compliant mechanism design. I'm like,
okay, maybe these are the guys I should
talk to. And um they instantly knew this
is a a bearing ratio problem. And so
they said, "Well, actually, you know, we
could probably solve this for you
without a full compliant design." Cuz
there's actually one problem with
compliant mechanisms, which is that if
we use this on a stabilizer, it would
have a variable force curve.
>> Like once it, you know, the material
compresses a lot, it's has more resistance,
resistance, >> right?
>> right?
>> And you don't want that. It would have
like a squishy feeling. You want the
stabilizer to kind of disappear when
you're, you know, because it should feel
like a normal switch, just stabilized. Yeah.
Yeah. >> Right.
>> Right.
>> What we could do is do this like hybrid
solution, which is this one. And so, I
would take the key cap off, but then
it'll probably break it cuz these are
just 3D printed >> copy
>> copy
>> uh parts. But what they do is they
inside of the slider, there's this
little spring
>> which is is actually a compliant
mechanism. So, it's a little V out of
spring steel.
>> Yeah. And it pops into the slider and it
basically just presses down on the wire
very, very lightly.
>> The same wire that is in the regular key
that helps the other one come down.
>> Yep. So, this is actually a very minimal
change from the existing designs that
are used widely throughout the keyboard community.
community.
>> You had intuited that there was a change
that was potentially available and here
it is.
>> Yeah. So, this is a kind of hybrid
solution. It's not fully compliant.
There are separate rigid bodies,
>> but as a result, um, you can probably tell
tell
just by playing with it. >> Yeah,
>> Yeah,
>> there's a lot of rattle there.
>> A ton more. And this one's very very
>> You hear the plastic parts moving, but
not metal rattle.
>> Well, and also it the the you can feel
on your finger the more stable movement
to it.
>> Yeah, absolutely. Actually performs the
stabilizing function better. um because
it is actually in many ways a tighter
tolerance part. Right?
>> The the really critical insight they had
and it's something I'd never even
thought about before, but on reflection
it's obvious. If you have if you had a
300 mm part and you want to machine that
to you know plus or minus 0.1 that's
harder to do than a smaller part, right?
Uh like when you it's easier to hold
tolerances over shorter distances,
right? And so the standard stabilizers
actually they have these rails that are
spaced pretty widely
>> um that um control the the movement. So
like the sort of X and Y translation right
right
>> here what they've done is they've moved
it to this very tiny little interface
which we call a tongue and groove
interface. And so it's a relatively very
small dimension. And as a result, we're
able to control tolerances much better
and tighten up that gap while still
having a clearance fit.
>> And the interesting thing about the
geometry of it is the slider can know,
but it can move this way laterally.
>> And that actually is what accommodates
for space cap width variation.
>> So we actually have this really tight
movement here, but we can go this way,
>> but it's constrained only in the
direction it needs to be constrained and
it moves where you want it to move. >> Yep.
>> Yep.
>> Wow. So that's part of how we got to
this really good place of a much better
much improved stabilizer.
>> But there they had another insight about
this what was not working with this
>> which is that this design is over constrained.
constrained.
>> There's there are redundant interfaces
in it
>> and this is kind of their their
specialty. He they uh they told me that
when clients come to them with
mechanical design problems designed by
professional mechanical engineers, 90%
of the time the designs are over
constrained. So they sent me this
amazing sort of demonstrator model here.
So two sliding linear bearings, right?
>> They both work just fine. Um and but
they're not robust to variation. So if
you have or one of them isn't. So if you
have the the uh rods slightly out of
alignment, that's what this does.
>> Oh, okay.
>> One of them works just fine, but one of
them binds. >> Ah,
>> Ah,
>> this is uh this one is robust to
variation and this one is not.
>> And that just means there's uh I would
assume that means there's a greater
tolerance greater tolerance between the
rod size and the hole size on this one
than there is on this one.
>> So that's one way of solving over
constraint is just tightening
tolerances, right? But that's a bad way
of solving it actually because it's
expensive and it's hard to to control.
Actually, what you need to do is control
the interfaces so that you're not over
constraining the design. A better way of
demonstrating what is different about this
this
>> is it that the contact point is more
>> Exactly. So one of these holes is just
intentionally too big. So it's not
touching in any way. There are only three
three
>> contact points here. Right. So it's
essentially this
>> right internally,
>> right? So that still moves and that
binds up. And that's that's the problem
with these stabilizers is they have
redundant contact faces and rails. So
they're over constrained making them
extra sensitive to the buildup of forces
because of the special problem of
stabilizers and the extremely bad
bearing ratio. It's sensitive to the
slightest thing. So whenever you try to
turn any dial on this, because of the
over constraint plus bad bearing ratio,
everything goes out of whack.
>> So their idea is, well, let's just solve
that by removing the over constraint.
and it buys us a little wiggle room to
add features and add forces that will
not cause binding. And that's why we're
able to add the spring to this design.
We're probably 3 years in. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> You know, this this was the first year
was just or uh first couple years was
just me. Uh this is working with them
for a few months and I'm like there's
still a little gap between that tongue
and groove interface. It can there's
like two in the cub community, we have
two words for this. There's um rattle,
which is the sound of the wire banging
around. That's the more severe problem.
But there's also a subtler thing known
as ticking where the slider moves
against the housing. And if you just tap
it a little bit, you can hear it.
>> People don't like that. I don't like that.
that.
>> And so if you're going to make a perfect
keyboard, you kind of want to make it
impossible for that to exist. And one
way to do that is I could just put some
lube in there. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> But what was the whole point of this
project? Right.
>> Right. to not have lube and not have a
change in performance over time as well.
>> Exactly. And just have it just be like a
conceptually pure
>> solution to the problem.
>> So one thing that they had mentioned to
me in the process of developing this was
well you know there's like a
theoretically perfect solution to this
problem. We could use pin joints because
then there's no no flat surface in any
way that touches any other flat surface.
And in fact that is one of the
characteristics of the Senica. There is
no hard surface anywhere in the keyboard
that touches another hard surface
without a gasket or some mitigation mechanism.
mechanism.
>> Oh wow.
>> Um no no no sort of moving functional
parts because that's where bad sounds
come from is flat hard parts hitting
against each other and resonating in
unwanted ways. One way to get rid of
flat hard parts hitting against each
other is to use pin joints because they
roll against each other. And they're
kind of one of the design huristics that
RDA uses is like whenever you can use a
pin joint, just use a pin joint cuz it's
better. Here we can see there are many
pin joints on this scale model of our
stabilizer. These metal things are pins.
>> Right. Right. Right. And one interesting
feature of a metal pin is that it's an
order of magnitude increase in precision
to to how the what tolerances you can
achieve with it
>> of course.
>> And so um when we're trying to get rid
of gaps between parts that's extremely
important. Uh so effectively you can get
zero clearance parts if you have
extremely precision ground pins and then
you have reasonably precision injection
molded interfaces. When they showed me
the model of this, I was like, "That
looks really hard." Like, because it was
just a conceptual model. It wasn't fully
fleshed out. I'm like, "I don't know.
That makes me nervous. I I'm five years
late on shipping this keyboard, right?
>> Do you think we could maybe do the
faster thing?"
>> But then it just like it just nagged at
me once we finished this and we were
ready to move into production. Like,
>> I don't know, maybe we should do the
perfect solution,
>> right? Right.
>> And just see what that looks like. And
so, so, so we did. We we sort of pluned
forward into another set of extremely
expensive sprints. And this is what
resulted. It's a it's a pin joint fully
pin uh mechanism that has no flat faces
striking against each other. We even
have some of the concepts from this one
built into it. So right here there's a
little preload beam presses down on the
wire just a little bit
>> and it prevents it from rattling.
>> Right. Right.
>> Right. Cuz that's one place where we uh
where we we're not reaming holes. Right.
And just to be clear for the audience,
like this this distance here can change
and be very wide. And this mechanism
because of the pin joints still
stabilizes perfect.
>> We just changed the length of the wire.
So there are actually on every keyboard
there's five stabilized keys. Uh
backspace, enter the two shifts, and the
space bar. And they're different
lengths. And so we just made a longer
wire. Otherwise, the geometry is the
same and the kinematics are the same.
>> Oh, fascinating. Um and so this is what
resulted. And it does what it's supposed
to do. Um, it's uh there there's
effectively zero clearance. There's
another we just added another preload
beam here at the back to prevent the
wire from rattling there.
>> And you know, one downside is that in
order to build a keyboard with these in
it, it takes like half a day. Um, it's
like a a sort of precise
>> adding these five keys.
>> Yeah. I mean, you'll see what it looks
like to build a stabilizer when Tahash
shows you. But,
>> you know, that's kind of the premise of
this keyboard is like just go crazy. Yeah.
Yeah.
>> What would it look like to make a
keyboard as perfect as you possibly can?
>> But what if you could? >> Yeah.
>> Yeah. >> Wow.
>> Wow.
>> And so, uh, that was a multi-year, very
expensive project
>> just for the stabilizer.
>> Yep. But in the end, we we found a way
of solving a problem in a way that
nobody nobody had before.
>> Right. So, this is unique in keyboards.
No one else has a keyboard. No one else
has built a keyboard.
>> We have a patent on this one and a
patent on that one.
>> Oh, fabulous. Oh, that's amazing.
>> Yeah. And so that's just one story of
like 10 different things like that from
this is the most extreme, but you know,
even the switch design, I went through
three different radically different
iterations, including getting tooling
made for each of them just to get the
[Music]
Hi, I'm Teha and today I'm going to be
showing you how a Norbar stabilizer is
assembled. Uh, one thing I'm learning as
I'm working here is that designing a
product is one thing, but also designing
sort of the assembly jigs to make your
products into a reality is also another
big part. So, um, this might be new for
keyboard enthusiasts, but our
stabilizers require a four stage uh sort
of assembly jig line process.
And from the first assembly jig, we get
just these two leaves are connected. And
then you can kind of see each part
slowly gets added on. uh piece by piece
until we have the fully assembled
stabilizer here. Obviously, from using
these jigs, it adds some assembly time.
But the biggest portion that adds
assembly time is the fact that at each
uh process of the assembly jig, we have
to manually ream certain parts of the
components. And the the reamers that we
use uh first they're very small but also
just the tiniest difference in width can
be the difference between your
stabilizer being too sluggish or uh too
rattly. So for example some components
you can be a little bit more rough with
but there's one component where for
example we are currently using a a2
mm reamer sized reamer and moving down
to a.8 813
reamer. That's the whole that's the
difference between being sluggish and
freely moving. So you have to be really
precise and there are some guiding
mechanisms that make it a lot easier but
a lot of it is just sort of done by
feel. So I will demonstrate a this is
the third process of our assembly. So
these were made in the previous steps.
sort of loaded up here and they line up
nicely and they're all sort of assembled
in a way such that it aids the process
That just slots in nicely.
Um, so I know Ryan might have mentioned
that he was looking for a no lube
solution. Uh, currently we do use lube
more for the purposes of just making the
mechanical movements smoother. Um uh it
does operate without lube. You can
definitely assemble it without it. But
you know just like how mechanical
watches the internals are all very well
lubricated. If you can see some benefits
in smoothness,
I think we should lube. So we do
currently lube, but they're not used for
their traditional purposes of the bulk
effect. They're actually used for the
intended purposes of um lubricating
certain mechanical motions. So, normally
I'd be doing this with gloves and be a
lot more careful, but because this is
just for demonstration purposes, I'll be
a little bit quicker. So, that's one
step. And then from here, I would
generally check that the interfaces are
freely moving.
And this is where the reaming comes in.
So, this is sort of the part that takes
a long time. And I can kind of feel when
certain parts are catching. And then I
have to be very steady with my hands
because even, you know, just that tenth
of a millimeter can be the difference between
between
your previous 10 minutes of work being
obsolete and being able to move on to
So yeah, this is just a little peak into
how a Norbar stabilizer is assembled.
I want to talk about, you know, as I
came into your house, I saw some
mid-century furniture. Uh, and I'd like
to talk about your aesthetic journey
here because while you've been
describing an engineering journey,
really what you're describing in my mind
is an aesthetic journey. You're looking
for a particular experience of the
keyboard at the cost of everything else. >> Yes.
>> Yes.
>> And I I'm so here for that. I'm just so
talk to me about your aesthetic
maturation and you know why this why
this is existing now.
>> Yeah. So I mean I I've I think I said in
the Virgin like this is not really a
keyboard a sane person needs to buy.
This doesn't solve any essential problem
that you can't solve with $10 or like
the free keyboard that comes with your Dell,
Dell, >> right?
>> right?
>> Um so
>> I think the
the meaning behind your question is why
do something so crazy, right? Why? Why
did I invest hundreds of thousands of
dollars of my own personal money with
really no confidence at all that I could
possibly ever make that back, right,
>> into something so wacky? Is this um and
I think about that a lot. It took me a
while to kind of actually get insight
into why I cared so much about keyboards
in the first place. And it does actually
kind of relate to mid-century modernism
as your question because like as I said,
retrofuturism is the vibe here. And um
one of my favorite authors, her name is
Virginia Postrell. She wrote a book
called The Power of Glamour. She has
this idea in it of people are drawn to
escapist things in commerce and
storytelling uh in in arts in general
because they're a little bit
dissatisfied with the world as it
actually is. Right? And we want to
inhabit or physically touch something
that feels
uh free from the disappointments of
everyday life, right? And uh
>> a beautiful phrase.
>> Well, uh I think that
this is why I loved Star Trek growing up
as a kid is, you know, I grew up in West
Virginia. I was a very nerdy, bookish,
weird, gay kid. And so you you feel a
little bit alienated by real life. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And on television there was this
incredible vision of the way things
would inevitably be in the future.
Everybody was going to be nice to each other.
other.
>> Tolerances would be accepted and
celebrated and everything was going to
be great. So I desperately wanted to
step into that world
>> and the the story that was like deep in
the culture. It wasn't just Star Trek
but um you know you see a lot of Epcot
stuff around my house. Like that was
that was the idea at the time is like
the future's going to be amazing. It's
right around the corner
>> and stands for experimental prototype
community of the tomorrow.
>> Tomorrow absolutely
>> and somehow that just like I that was my
escape. I was like okay
maybe reality sucks
>> but the future is going to be amazing
and this is what it's going to look like
and it's intimately related to space
exploration and computing right and so
the design language of Star Trek to me
is that an the expression of that. Yeah.
>> And I heavily associate it with
computing from that era. And that's why
these keyboards feel like keyboards from
the 1980s, right? Is for me, they embody
that hope of, okay, once we're all
connected to each other by the internet.
Surely we'll all like cultural
differences will disappear and we'll all
get along, right? Everybody's going to
be so smart because they have access to
infinite information. It's not so
possible to believe in that idea
anymore. And that makes me want to sort
of escape into these perfect realms of
this fantasy. Yeah. Even more. And
that's why this stabilizer won't do. Right.
Right. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> There's an emotional thing here.
>> And you have the power. You can I like
to talk about some of the things I
achieved while making a show was stuff
that I could do because I had quote TV money.
money. >> Sure.
>> Sure.
>> I was making enough where I could
allocate a certain amount of absurd
dollars to things that were just
interesting to me. And I felt very
grateful for having that opportunity. I
tell you, can I give you one perspective?
perspective?
What you're doing here might not make
sense from commerce, but every fine
artist knows this model entirely of
being unforgiving about the process and
then selling at a very high expense the
product of that process. Um, and I think
that what you're manufacturing here are
individual pieces of art. It turns out
that there's it's more viable than you
would think if you find people who want
to be passionate about the same thing
that you're passionate about. And you
know, these these keyboards are the
Senica now has a 6 to9month wait list,
right? We've sold a lot of them and
people are very excited to get them. We
have, you know, clients who it starts at
$3,600. Like I say, nobody needs this
keyboard. I freely admit that. M we have
clients who bought two of the $8,000
one, the titanium solid one, you know.
Um clearly this resonates with a small
group of people and I just want to hang
out with and make stuff for those people.
people.
>> Well, and I'd like to talk a little bit
also about that community because the
whole time you were going through all of
this exploration, am I right that you
were communicating with that community
online, talking to other keyboard
enthusiasts? So, this was a project
other people followed.
>> Absolutely. This is everything here is
the result of things that I've mostly
learned from my fellow enthusiasts on
websites like Geek Hack and Keep Talk
and all these places where people just
talk about keyboards all day long. Um,
and uh, it's an amazing community.
People actually, you know, I've I've
often unfortunately I I often
unfavorably compare the prop replica
community to the keyboard community. Uh
when especially when I was younger, uh
prop collecting was mostly about having
a thing that nobody else had.
>> Yeah. There was a lot of people that got
off on that specific part of it.
>> Uh and that's what actually turned me
off in early days. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> But the keyboard community is incredibly
supportive and encouraging and even
people who operate companies in this
space help each other out all the time.
>> Wow. um you know uh you know I I could
give you countless examples of friend
companies that really do things that are
not in their commercial interest just to
help each other out and sort of develop
this community
>> because they believe in the mission.
>> They believe in the mission. They just
they personally like this stuff. They're
like, "Oh, wouldn't it be cool if that
existed? I want you to do that cuz I'm
doing something else right now. Here's,
you know, here's the CAD files or
whatever." Um and yeah, the keyboard
community is actually quite amazing.
>> I am so glad that it turned out to be
viable. that it didn't actually matter
if it did or didn't is delightful. Um,
I'm so inspired by this. This is just a
really incredible journey. I thank you
for sharing this with me.
>> Thank you so much.
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