Keyboard

AlienALX

Active member
Simple name lol, not so simple project.

Been wanting a custom board for a while now, and do want to make my own, but don't want to pay the completely stupid prices for one.

So I bought this with minor liquid damage. All works fine, RGB a little off. Though I have a feeling that may no longer be the case but we will see. Don't care any way, so long as they do one solid colour well.

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£150 new, I paid £35. I do hate red switches though, so I got these. These were £16 a set per set of 37.

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I then had some luck on the exact caps I wanted. I wanted clear ones. Not pudding, but crystal clear. I had some in my watch list for £50 (I need a full 150 set so as not to have any out of their correct rows) and they came up for £21 on Amazon Warehouse. Result.

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If you ever buy switches check them. A lot of people order them, steal some and then return.

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They should be sealed like this.

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I was also worried about the caps. For the same reason. They were all there, phew, all four rows.

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This is what I meant by clear.

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OK so job one test the board. Was all good. This is not upside down, this is the dust cover.

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Pull the caps and we get our first signs of liquid damage. Sadly this wasn't just regular liquid, but a protein meal ffs.

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More signs in here. A lot more.

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OK so clean all that up.

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And then desolder for an hour.

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Only for your pump to break 4 switches from the end *fumes*. Unplug pump, figure out what is wrong, fix it, reheat.

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And then.

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One cleaned PCB. That took about an hour, this stuff was caked on. This was much easier as I could just throw it in the sink in hot soapy water.

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And both.

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Right. Bought one of these for £12. So I am right at £100 all in.



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Will start the soldering tomorrow. Nursing a missing chunk from my finger from slipping with the pliers. Imagine that, then using a rag soaked in 99% isoprop after. Aye, I am a little sore.
 
Sod it. Decided to do it today. OK so the setup goes as follows. Solder iron, obs. Braid wire just in case. Flux, for some of the joints that had been corroded by the spill. This was just belts and braces. Finally, a multimeter. Why that? well some of the reviews on the site I bought them from said a lot of the switches were dead. Given they are such a pig to remove I decided to play safe and test every sodding one. I found 0 dead switches, so IMO said people are noobs at soldering and probably melted them inside.



I started off with one in each corner and the space bar switch and middle top row. I did not want to overdo it, as this is how you end up missing solder and things don't work.



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I then did them top and bottom row.



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And then worked in rows of three, top to bottom, one at a time.



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I then made my one and only mistake. Because I took a drink and vape break I forgot where I had put the switch in, and ended up soldering two holes closed. This was remedied by calming down, and getting the pump back out. Eventually.



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Hello World. I work.



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Oh dear.....



So last night after messing around with the solder pump the piece of card I was using to blot the pump was smothered in solder. So, I picked it up and threw it in the bin. What I did not realise was that mistake nearly cost me all of the money I had spent.



You will see these things in certain boards.



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They are fresh out of the bin, and there are only three. I spent another hour trying to locate the last one to no avail. FUDGE. I desperately looked them up on the net, nothing. Thing is, I knew I had seen them somewhere before. So I went down, armed with my torch, and dug around under the stairs.



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Opened it.



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"Ooo, wassat?"



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*wipes brow*
 
Oddly I didn't. The worst part? was getting the Asus keys out of the metal plate.

Sadly all is not perfect. Some keys do not work. None of the letters or symbols. Unfortunately to get back in I need to remove all of the caps again, something I CBA with now.

I can 100% fix it, but I just don't have time now. Will get back to it in a week or so when I have sorted out a load of other stuff.
 
hah. Well it seems fitting the kiwi switches had an unexpected side effect.

I present the nixie keyboard.

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