#399: Review: 3D-printed Straight-key with a great story - by the HamRadioDuo

In this video, we're going to take a look at this 3D printed straight key for Morse code operation for ham radio. This key is designed and sold by uh Mike and Becky Spiceland. That's uh N4 FFF and N4 BKY, better known as Ham Radio Duo from their YouTube channel. Now, I don't do a lot of product reviews and the only reviews that I typically do are for products that I think uh I will certainly personally use and this is one of them. and also ones that have got, you know, maybe a good story behind them. And this certainly does. I think this key differs from a lot of 3D printed keys that you can find on the market in at least three different ways. So, let's uh take a look at those first. Well, one cool thing is that the key actually comes with, you know, some nice rubber feet on the bottom, but also comes with its own case that you can slip the unit into and uh it kind of protects the key. So, if you want to pack it for traveling, that works out great. You could also turn this thing around and stick the key into the base and actually use it as a little bit of an elevated stand. Another very interesting aspect about this key is that uh its size. Uh most of the 3D printed keys that you see out there are relatively small, designed to maybe be packed in a pack to use portable and things like that. And this one certainly could be packed away because it's protected by that case. But the dimensions of it were actually intentional in terms of this size. Now, the problem with a lot of those smaller keys is that they don't really have a good feel. And I think Mike and Becky really wanted this key to have a good feel to it and be nice and solid and also just feel very natural to use. So, in order to do that, they actually took inspiration from the famous J38 key. So, in fact, if you take a look at this, the geometries are virtually identical. uh the dimensions from the fulcrum or the pivot point here back to where the stop is identical between the two keys. The distance from the fulcrum to the suspension in this case a spring magnet uh is identical and the dimension from that fulcrum out to the key itself is again identical and even the height of the key you know the paddle if you will is identical to the J38. So the idea was to make this thing basically as close as possible in geometry to the J38 so it would feel like a J38 and feel and operate in a nice snappy solid way. Now the third thing that makes this key very unique is that Mike and Becky feel very strongly about giving back to the ham radio community and helping to draw new people into the CW experience. and they do that through their educational YouTube videos as well as even some online website tools to enhance the CW user experience. Now, when it comes to this key, what they've decided to do is for every key they sell, that helps to contribute funds for them to build more keys to provide to new CW operators just getting into the hobby. So, really great way to give back, and I absolutely love that. Let's take a look at some of the mechanical features. Uh they use some really nice brass hardware here uh for there and for the contact point down there is a nice brass screw as well. Uh they've used a really nice strong magnet as a return instead of a physical spring. In fact, it's so strong that when you adjust it, you actually want to push down on this to turn it cuz otherwise it push puts a lot of pressure on the threads. It makes a little bit harder to turn. Push down on it to turn it to adjust it to where you want to adjust the return pressure. And then the connection to your rig is just done through this 8 in jack here on the back. And they've even gone so far as to providing a tool with a uh you know basically a little hex wrench that you can use to adjust the mechanical stop to adjust the travel for the key itself. So that comes along with it. And as I mentioned, its feel is actually very similar to the J38. And now we'll switch over to the Becky and Mike key. Now, the one thing to get used to with the key is essentially, you know, the finger pad or the knob. You know, on the J38, you know, the arm kind of comes down here. So, when I grip a key, I typically grip it, you know, with three fingers like this. And I do the same thing on this key. and my forefinger kind of touches the arm instead of kind of the edge of the knob, if you will. Just a little something to get used to. But the reason they did this is they wanted this key to be nice and rigid. So it had a good snappy feel like the J38. So by making the key kind of fat or the arm kind of fat, you're not going to get the springiness that you typically get from a plastic assembly. So a small price to pay in my mind. And I know they've been uh talk toying with the idea of designing one with a navy

style knob like this back here, so you can kind of grip uh with the navy type knob as well. Uh not sure if that's actually going to be among the things that they offer, but that's something they've been toying with. So there's your short review and introduction to this 3D printed key from the Ham Radio Duo, uh Mike and Becky, N4 FF and N4PKY. I will put some links down below to the Ham Radio Duo website and store as well as the YouTube channel. And if I can find some links to some of the other online tools and websites they've developed, I'll put them there as well. Thanks again as always for watching. Check out this key if you're at all into CW and we'll see you on the air.