Ham Radio - 3D printed wrist mounted micro paddles. 

Very nice and practical design! The simpler, the better. Also thanks for choosing metric screws. 73 Stephan

That's pretty slick. With a long enough Velcro strap it would even make a nice little thigh mount.

Nice little project

super good design and its good left or right and straight forward i like it

I like it! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and ideas.

Great design, Kevin. I love the slot-together approach 👍👍

What a great idea! Thank you for making it available to us on Thingiverse. I am going to make one. Thank you again, Kevin. 73

Nice job Kevin, will give the Ender3 V2 a job to do.

Neat idea and nice job. My first thought upon seeing it in action was to replace the cable with Bluetooth. 😁

Hi Kevin, just finishing printing this little gem. It went together well, and I only need to figure out the wiring of the socket. A big thank you. Happy Christmas mate! 73 Colin vk2JCC

Great job Kevin 👏🏽

reminds me of the WWII radio operators in bombers. Many of them wore their key strapped to their thighs. Knew one old ham that worked CW mobile like that. I like this, and hope to have it on my printer shortly. Thanks Keven.

Good application. Good idea in action!

Very nice design. I look forward to printing some and assembling as gifts for my Ham brothers.

Fine design, especially the slide in paddles. The first comment I have is to maybe angle the paddles ~30° in reference to the wristband to make the paddles a bit more ergonomic. The second comment would be to maybe add a module/screw for adjusting the contact distance/paddle movement. Thx Kevin for taking time to design this.

This is awesome! I cant run my printer in the winter, too cold in the shop, prints will warp, but come spring time I'm darn sure trying this!

Nicely thought through...

What a novel idea! Arm chair copy now become lawn chair copy. 🙂

Cool project, have to try and print this for myself. I haven't seen wrist mounted paddles either but back in the 90's when I was a cw operator in the armed forces we had straight keys that had straps for mounting on a knee. That actually worked really well, wish I could find a key like that.

Nice! Thank you for this!

I put magnets on the bottom of my 3D printed porta-paddles. Stuck to the top of the 891 they are probably more solid then my Bencher at home. Only really works with the form factor of the 891 though. On my 7300 they'd be way too high, and there's no hope at all for the KX2 (glad it already has them on it!)

Thanks for your help

Nice design Kevin. I will definitely make one. Since I have an addiction to making keys, Hi Hi. Just got done making K6ARK version. Simple is generally best. As a SOTA-teer, I'm always looking at different ways to try something. Some of my favorite keys have been 3d printed. Since they are light, I usually carry two for back up. I have made a few leg straps but never a wrist strap, great idea. Hard to tell watching the video so I will have to see when I print one. Only recommendation I see right now would be to change the paddles so they are closer together. So your fingers are not so far a part. So thanks again. 73 De KF7SEY

👍Good idea and thanks for sharing Kevin. If you decide to have a competition to name this new key design, I would suggest "The I-19". The idea being that Interstate 19 is in the US and is metric. Also, the "I" could stand for "Iambic".

Kevin, A local ham friend (Elmering does pay off. He used to mow my lawn 35 years ago) is making one of these keys for his own use. I recommended he use brass nuts and bolts just to make better contacts electrically and it will look more “cool” too. I also suggested he make points on the ends of the contact bolts. I will try to get pictures of his final product if he does it my way. Dave K8WPE

Last week Adam, K6ARK released a design for some mini paddles too. His design uses a live hinge and the flexibility of PETG to make a compact design. You can find it on printables. It isn't wrist mountable but it wouldn't be too difficult to add onto the base design considering it's just a thin rectangle with two rectangular cutouts on the ends. You probably could even add the mod directly in a slicer like PrusaSlicer. EDIT: Adam Posted another model that allows you to mount it to your leg or wrist. Another popular method is to glue neodymium magnets to the base and attach it to the radio. Works for a radio like an FT-817 but not one like a IC-705

Excellent! You designed it and then provided the file for free. Now let's sit back and wait for the "Well, actually...engineers" who are going to tell you how you could have done it better. 🤦‍♂️

First view. Woot! Been following your progress on Patreon. Going to download the Thingverse files right now! de W3DJS in Dacula, GA.

Great job Kevin. I like it very much but I don't do CW. I am a ssb sota. Metric all the way 😉 Motters M7TRS 73 👍🏻 🇬🇧

Nice idea Kevin, I'm sure I've seen a SOTA guy use a key strapped to his leg! I think it was N7KOM but could be mistaken. Take care Kevin and keep the good stuff coming 👍

Very Creative Kevin I would like to learn morse code think am to old to learn am 55 I've just got tickets last year I do decode lot's of CW. Great video again.

Such a great project! Hope you are selling these, you have to make the cash for the effort. 73

Hey Kevin, my pop watches a lot of your videos and finds them very interesting and helpful. He doesn’t have a RU-vid account and he asked me to see if there was a way he could personally reach out to you. All he told me was he was having and issue with one of his radios and he thought you could help him out

Cool idea! How about making it leg mount ? I like to have my one hand free for other tasks ( like holding coffee mug, killing mosquitos, etc) while calling CQ with the other :) 73! Linas LY2H

Nice! Prior art: In the '60s there were folks who strapped a key to their thigh so that they could operate while driving. (Of course, keyers were only starting to show up, so these were straight keys. I never heard of this being done with a bug - vibrations in the car would probably set that weight a swinging.

Clever idea. 73

I like it, but could you by pass the jack & just wire the parts directly?

WA6YOU demonstrates Different CW Keys, including a leg-mounted straight key from Marine Corps equipment: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-n7lJccG0u48.html The J-45: this is the well known "leg clamp" key consisting of a J-37 mounted on a metal plate hinged to a spring metal which was worn above the knee (late WWII) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Zmwx4kvxQgk.html J-45 key Sending morse code: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uOrJYI263mk.html Clansman (UK Military) Morse key ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-g6KFf_7AzaA.html If you wanted to do a leg-mounted option, the strap has to be at right-angles to the wrist mounted version. A 3D printed version of the J-45 may be possible. Keith, M0KIL.

Imagine a Bluetooth Transmitter, Hooked into those paddles. And the Air force used leg paddles/key in ww2. DE VE3TYA

Version 2 - wireless ;)

Maybe you could try to sell them yourself. Just a thought. Take care and 73 Vic de KE8JWE

I'd likely get up and walk away from the rig! Crash!

Can’t watch this. Mic picks up every mouth sound.

Loose the gum! Please.

👋 🐈