Include a jig for helping with assembling columns

[nickcoutsos]

During assembly of the original dactyl-flatpacked I realized that I left too much clearance between the slot cutouts (the OpenSCAD preview renderer doesn't like co-incident faces in difference() operations so I usually oversize the subtracted geometry a bit and forgot to remove that in the final render) which meant nothing fit together solidly. To ensure all of the pieces where properly aligned for gluing I had some 3D printed jigs I came up with.

Two printed pieces to firmly hold column supports in place and parallel to one another. At some point I also had another jig that matched the interior curve of and column and had protrusions that fit into the switch cutouts to ensure their alignment.

Had I planned ahead I could have designed another such jig to be cut from acrylic. One jig for the finger cluster will work for all of the columns since the cross-support slots are all in the same place. This should be true of the thumb cluster as well but I'd rather double check that than be wrong about the math for a third(fourth?) time.

[7t2]

I think the included pieces serve well enough as a jig, as I've illustrated here in these diagrams


So with 5 minute epoxy, this project is already pretty easy to assembly accurately as is. Well, except for the thumb cluster. I think having an acrylic base would make assembling the thumb cluster a lot easier.