Filco with clears....DONE!

[shawn o]

First attempt at soldering anything with a PCB involved. Bought a Hakko FX-888 soldering iron and 808 desoldering gun. Always wanted a proper soldering iron.

Read some soldering guides online and at eevblog and it turned out to be much easier than I thought. Lead free solder Filco used was a bit of a PITA to desolder. Had to have the iron at almost 750 degrees to get it to melt.

Only time consuming part was opening up every switch to remove the unnecessary diodes (got switches from donor G80-8113).

Did it over a few nights. First one switch to ensure it would work....then 5....etc.....and tonight about 30 or so to finish it off!

Used a grey for the spacebar. Not sure if I'll keep it.

Swapped out the red LEDs for blue ones also (was a black Majestouch with red LEDs).

[Reptile]

Nice! I wish I had the skills to do this. Also did you go with regular clears or ergo-clears?

[shawn o]

Straight up clears! Wanted to try them and compare to my Filco with browns. I seem to easily bottom out with the brown switches and thought clears might be the ticket for me. Just waiting on some sweet keycaps to try it out.

[absyrd]

Nice work!

[mkawa]

nice! very clean work. how do you like the 888? i'm probably going to get a real station later this year...

[Autolyze]

Looking good! I feel like clears are a bit underappreciated. They're fantastic for typing on without bottoming out.

[Nighted]

I have a Weller WESD51 station. Would like the desoldering station as well but don't want to spend over $500!

How do you like the Hakko desoldering gun?

[mkawa]

also looking at the wesd51. worth it over the ayoues of the world?

[Nighted]

I think a bic lighter would be better than an Ayoue! Weller is really good. I have looked at Hakko before and they make pretty nice stuff.

[smknjoe]

also looking at the wesd51. worth it over the ayoues of the world?

I have a model similar to that I got a few years back and it's been very reliable. Much better than a straight up iron (you need to be able to control temp.) I got my display model for about $100.

Great job shawn! Very clean.

[shawn o]

I looked at Weller and Hakko and it seems Weller is getting a bad reputation now since Cooper purchased them. Hakko has better customer service and a better tip selection.

[1839cc]

Looks very good! Post your thoughts when you get to type on it.

If you don't like the gray switch under the spacebar, try it under escape instead.

[Awful]

Fantastic job. I wish I had the testicular fortitude to do a Filco solder job.

[ty_moon]

Fantastic job. I wish I had the testicular fortitude to do a Filco solder job.

Is it difficult to (de)solder a switch from a Filco?

[iodine131]

Nice one! What's your typing feeling now?

[Awful]

Is it difficult to (de)solder a switch from a Filco?

It is if you're scared to ruin your $160 keyboard(s)

[harrison]

Is it difficult to (de)solder a switch from a Filco?

if you've got a half decent iron (temp-controlled) and some wick or a solder sucker, there are only 2 possible risks... overheating the PBC and wrecking the trace, and melting the bottom of the switch housing.  both of these occur from using too much heat, or heating too long.  with a good iron (or a desolder gun/station) both of these risks go down considerably.

being a 1-sided PCB makes it MUCH easier.  i did 1 double-sided PCB, and it's much more difficult.  i don't have a desoldering station, and found wick to work much better than a solder sucker.  i was able to de-solder a full board of 1-sided PCB mounted switches in just under 2 hours.  I had a full board done in just under an hour.  the 2-sided PCB with plate mount switches took more than twice as long, and I ended up with 3 wrecked switch housings.

[alaricljs]

Not quite sure I followed what you're asking, let me know if I got it wrong... If you're modding a plate mount board and want standard switches then it's fastest to replace w/ plate mount switches.  If you're going for non-standard switches you have to open them all up anyhow so PCB vs plate won't really matter.

[keyboardlover]

Nice job OP. Might want to put this in the Mods subforum

[1839cc]

I don't see anything however for Cherry MX Gray Tactile...  I see the Linear variant MX1A-21NW but nothing for Tactile; did this get discontinued?

All you need from it is the spring. The stem is identical to the clear one.

[alaricljs]

That's the right number for Clears, that Linear number looks like PCB mount.  I haven't seen any US source w/ grays.  There was a GB thread where someone mentioned a place that had them.  Let me see if I can't find it.

[keebler64]

nice! very clean work. how do you like the 888? i'm probably going to get a real station later this year...

I've got the 888 and love it. No need for digital readout, it's very accurate and heats up very quickly! And the Irons fit onto my 1987 Ungar Dual Output Station too!

[lorem3k]

if you've got a half decent iron (temp-controlled) and some wick or a solder sucker, there are only 2 possible risks... overheating the PBC and wrecking the trace, and melting the bottom of the switch housing.  both of these occur from using too much heat, or heating too long.  with a good iron (or a desolder gun/station) both of these risks go down considerably.

Wrecking the trace isn't really a big deal, if it happens you can just solder a thin wire from the lead on the switch to a part of the trace that's still intact. Not pretty, but it works.

[o2dazone]

Clean. Yeah clears are STIFF, they definitely deserve to be on a plate mount.

[1839cc]

That's the right number for Clears, that Linear number looks like PCB mount.  I haven't seen any US source w/ grays.  There was a GB thread where someone mentioned a place that had them.  Let me see if I can't find it.

I know the G80-8113 (clear) and G80-11800 both have a tactile gray spacebar switch.

[shawn o]

Played some  BF3 tonight and the clears are STIFF. Wow, my pinky is killing me. I think I'm going to  switch the tab/shift/control keys to brown and see how that goes.

[Lanx]

imo you should change some unused keys to browns i.e. "=" or "-" this way you have a nice contrast and remember why you choose whites.

[1839cc]

Give it some time. Toughen up those pinkies.

[shawn o]

[smknjoe]

Where did you get the clears and how much were they (if you don't mind me asking?)