2009-12-31

hand warmer for keyboarding in the cold

11.17: proj.gear/hand.warmer for fast fingers:

. keyboard house needs a wire frame made from one wire for stiffness
that comes in 2 parts for adjustable its like 2 tables with on upside down
and legs of them are bound at a distance of your choosing .
. the top table slanted on either side .
. the joists are twist-arounds,
and they hold up the heat pad which is covered by the reflectix .

. to control height add loops end of table legs
to connect them by string so that the string can keep the endpoints
at a fixed distance without having to rely on the frictional force
created by binding the legs together with a winding .

11.21: gear/hand.warmer/redesign for boundary problem:
. the box for kybd has a boundary problem:
sometimes the hands like to travel straight from home keys
over to control keys
and that means the sides have to be clear of any box struts
atleast up to the delete key on the right side .
. instead of the peak sloping to the sides,
it would be more heat and space efficient to slope front and back;
the slope allows the heat pad on the roof to cover more of the arms .
. this also allows a bar from side to side
at both the rear and front
that help stability a bit .
the rear bar is part of the bottom table,
the front bar is part of the top table;
except the table model needs adjusting
because the top`struct has to overhang forward,
while the bottom`struct has to recede .
. one simple wire design is
start from front corner;
mov back horz'ly until past the kybd's delete key;
rise for height of roof`slope`bottom;
mov horz'ly to rear of tray
mov horz'ly to center of kybd;
do same for other side (in reverse order
and so wire is all one piece) .
. the front-back horz gives the top an anchor for
a top that is a horz rectangle
with 2 other rectangles for back and front sides of roof .
the roof hangs with peak over knuckles when fingertips are
numbers row (makes a tight fit for little-used function row) .

11.28: gear/hand.warmer/composite cardboard with metal joints:
. to save on wire, just use it for the joints
bound to scrap wood (or rolled cardboard) .


12.1: proj.gear/kybd.box/heatpad frame:
. make a c-shape when viewed from side
so that to change height,
have chg in depth of c
. then when feels right add reinforce as needed .

12.2: proj.gear/messed wire can be reused:
. mess wire ? can reuse as staples:

proj.gear/kybd.box:
measure:
. 11*2 wide, 8deep at bottom
7" high center for 2" high over peak,
7+3 on to make the c-shape for the back .
wire version:
. final design was an extruded-Y shape with the bottom of y bent L-shaped
to form the let, and the top of the Y acted as joists to lay heatpad across .
extruding means the top of left fork of one Y connected with left fork of other,
and likewise for right forks .
y`bot: 8in,
y`top: 7in .
(2*8+2*7+11+13)*2 = 9.0ft of wire
. after building;
seems ok for heat pad,
but what about sleeping bag? way too heavy .
. the whole lid needs to slide into a box;
then can nix the heat pad .
. found during log that the fingers need a lot of space for shift-combo's
as the main fingers lift as part of landing the pinky on the shift key .
. the mac needs to be higher than the kybd with the box around it .

proj.gear/kybd.box/cardboard version:
. to make the box,
find one of any length that is right in the other dimensions,
and then add the extrusion with sealing tape .
construction:
. needed to be a bit wider than kybd`platform,
this was exactly the width of a box I found,
but a minor distraction was the grey-board quality of that cardboard:
the tape didn't stick well .

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