Author Topic: Post your Kingsaver : )  (Read 4412 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline intelli78

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 1503
  • Location: Seattle
Post your Kingsaver : )
« on: Thu, 08 May 2014, 21:39:37 »
Several Kingsavers have exchanged hands lately, so let's see 'em. I recently got mine from esoomenona. It came with Matias quiet switches, but I got a Leading Edge DC2014 off eBay for a reasonable price and changed the switches to Blue ALPS last night. It was the biggest soldering project I've done to date. It was a success except I was not careful desoldering one switch (right arrow) and pulled out a bunch of copper. However, I was able to jump the connection and it's working once more.  :thumb:

Photos:

As I received it from esoomenona.



Blue ALPS taken from the Leading Edge donor board.



Everything soldered in, but right arrow not working :( I didn't bother changing out F keys, I rarely use them.



The jumper wire I used to fix the right arrow. Color almost matched the PCB. Came from a variety pack from Radioshack.



My travel setup for work. The board has SGI keycaps with some Wang mods mixed in (tab, caps, shifts, enter, backslash, backspace) because the gray SGI mods don't line up quite right.



Please consider carefully before you decide to comment, for Jesus.

Offline noisyturtle

  • * Exalted Elder
  • Posts: 6423
  • comfortably numb
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #1 on: Thu, 08 May 2014, 21:44:40 »
64119-0
someday I'm gonna post ITT

Offline AKIMbO

  • HHKBro
  • Posts: 1778
  • Location: Tennessee
  • Know Topre, Know Peace. No Topre, No Peace.
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #2 on: Thu, 08 May 2014, 21:50:18 »
Dropping all my Kingsaver pron (spare PCB, spare plate, blue alps kingsaver, salmon alps kingsaver, green alps kingsaver)!






« Last Edit: Thu, 08 May 2014, 21:52:38 by AKIMbO »
Mkawa Beta SSK | IBM SSK | IBM Model AT F | IBM F 122 | IBM Unsaver | LZ-GH (62g ergo clears) | HHKB Pro2 Type-S | HHKB Pro2 | Realforce 87U-Silent (55g uniform) | Leopold FC660C | Omnikey 101 (blue alps) | Kingsaver (blue alps) | Zenith ZKB2 (green alps)
| KBD75 (box reds)

Offline intelli78

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 1503
  • Location: Seattle
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #3 on: Thu, 08 May 2014, 22:11:49 »
I love the RGB mods. Did you dye those yourself?

Also, how would you say green ALPS compare to other linear alps? (e.g., black, yellow, salmon)
Please consider carefully before you decide to comment, for Jesus.

Offline AKIMbO

  • HHKBro
  • Posts: 1778
  • Location: Tennessee
  • Know Topre, Know Peace. No Topre, No Peace.
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #4 on: Thu, 08 May 2014, 22:13:27 »
I love the RGB mods. Did you dye those yourself?

Also, how would you say green ALPS compare to other linear alps? (e.g., black, yellow, salmon)

Black and salmon are tactile, not linear. Yellow alps are heavier than green alps (think of the difference b/w black and red mx, just not as pronounced). The RGB mods were dyed by the person I purchased the kingsaver package from.  Right now I'm rocking non-dyed mods.
Mkawa Beta SSK | IBM SSK | IBM Model AT F | IBM F 122 | IBM Unsaver | LZ-GH (62g ergo clears) | HHKB Pro2 Type-S | HHKB Pro2 | Realforce 87U-Silent (55g uniform) | Leopold FC660C | Omnikey 101 (blue alps) | Kingsaver (blue alps) | Zenith ZKB2 (green alps)
| KBD75 (box reds)

Offline intelli78

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 1503
  • Location: Seattle
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #5 on: Thu, 08 May 2014, 22:17:28 »
I love the RGB mods. Did you dye those yourself?

Also, how would you say green ALPS compare to other linear alps? (e.g., black, yellow, salmon)

Black and salmon are tactile, not linear. Yellow alps are heavier than green alps (think of the difference b/w black and red mx, just not as pronounced). The RGB mods were dyed by the person I purchased the kingsaver package from.  Right now I'm rocking non-dyed mods.

Oh, of course, brain fart.

Cool. Maybe I'll try to dye my spare Wang mods as my next project.
Please consider carefully before you decide to comment, for Jesus.

Offline CPTBadAss

  • Woke up like this
  • Posts: 14363
    • Tactile Zine
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #6 on: Mon, 12 May 2014, 19:27:19 »
I'll take some better pictures later when there's sunlight. For now, this is my WangSaver. It's going under the knife this week to have it's switches switched to complicated Blue Alps :D.



Offline intelli78

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 1503
  • Location: Seattle
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #7 on: Thu, 15 May 2014, 13:05:57 »
I'll take some better pictures later when there's sunlight. For now, this is my WangSaver. It's going under the knife this week to have it's switches switched to complicated Blue Alps :D.

Show Image

Show Image


Looking forward to the results  :D
Please consider carefully before you decide to comment, for Jesus.

Offline jacobolus

  • Posts: 3661
  • Location: San Francisco, CA
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #8 on: Fri, 30 May 2014, 03:50:50 »
For those of you with the kind of time/money to spend on a Kingsaver, and want something very smooth and solid but also very tactile, I recommend:

For clicky switches: orange Alps with Matias clicky click leaves swapped in [noticeably nicer than white switches].
For tactile switches: orange Alps with Matias quiet tactile leaves swapped in [this beats the pants off salmon switches].
For quiet switches: dampened cream Alps with Matias quiet tactile leaves swapped in.
For clicky w/ no bottom-out switches: dampened cream Alps with Matias clicky click leaves swapped in.

Unless you want light weight switches, in which case the mid-1980s blue/green/ivory Alps switches are just dandy.

Also, all Alps switches get even nicer when lubed.
« Last Edit: Fri, 30 May 2014, 03:55:04 by jacobolus »

Offline CPTBadAss

  • Woke up like this
  • Posts: 14363
    • Tactile Zine
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #9 on: Fri, 30 May 2014, 07:58:54 »
You should bring some of these to Keycon for people to try out :D

Offline jwaz

  • * based mod
  • Posts: 2069
  • #geekhack on freenode
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #10 on: Fri, 30 May 2014, 10:37:16 »
For those of you with the kind of time/money to spend on a Kingsaver, and want something very smooth and solid but also very tactile, I recommend:

For clicky switches: orange Alps with Matias clicky click leaves swapped in [noticeably nicer than white switches].
For tactile switches: orange Alps with Matias quiet tactile leaves swapped in [this beats the pants off salmon switches].
For quiet switches: dampened cream Alps with Matias quiet tactile leaves swapped in.
For clicky w/ no bottom-out switches: dampened cream Alps with Matias clicky click leaves swapped in.

Unless you want light weight switches, in which case the mid-1980s blue/green/ivory Alps switches are just dandy.

Also, all Alps switches get even nicer when lubed.

I'm sensing a trend here... Matias leaves makes everything better :P

I'll bring a box of broken blue alps to the Keycon and we can experiment on them!

Offline jacobolus

  • Posts: 3661
  • Location: San Francisco, CA
Re: Post your Kingsaver : )
« Reply #11 on: Fri, 30 May 2014, 11:22:11 »
I'm sensing a trend here... Matias leaves makes everything better :P
2 advantages: (1) they’re new & fresh and haven’t been worn down by age or use, unlike many 25–30-year-old switches; (2) they’re very crisply tactile, manufactured to a good spec & pretty tight tolerances, it seems. On the flip-side, Matias housings/switchplates are based on the simplified Alps/Forward Electronics switch design, which I don’t like as much as complicated Alps switches, especially the ones with a long switchplate like orange or blue.