Challenges
The keyboard's design was to avoid lips at the sides; as such, the keyboard could not be mounted onto sliders the typical way (on the side). The unit also must be electrically grounded from top to bottom, which means the contact point between painted surfaces had to allow electricity to pass thru. The client also wanted a shroud covering all the components on the bottom so that it cannot be seen from the side and rear. Also, the large shroud had to have the client's logo and information.
Solutions
The keyboard was designed to have the sliders below, which created a different issue; the sliders had a little play in them, so the keyboard would "wiggle." The design was then adjusted to be at a slight angle in, so the play on both sliders cannot be felt that heavily on the flat surface. All painted surfaces contacting each other had to be masked, so the paint was removed in a small circle between specific points; this involved making sure there was an electrical pathway from top to bottom. The shroud was initially designed to be in 3-pieces so that the side panels could be silkscreen externally in smaller pallets. However, the shroud looked disjunct, so a whole panel was bent instead.
Interestingly when switching to an entire panel, a lower gauge of sheet metal was also decided to reduce labor and save cost. This caused a problem where the bend press die can cause an impression on the metal. A thick plastic liner was used to protect the panels during bending, so the edge would look smooth. Overall, this project was more challenging than it looked, as the panel's final design had more fine tuning in the manufacturing process to keep the panel flawless at the end.
