Hello. Sorry for Ukrainian English, but I'm will try to describe my problem. Recently I've started to be the owner of IBM model m. For the first, I bought a USB/ps2 adapter and it worked fine. When I found a tool to disassemble the keyboard I cleaned that (so many parts of cockroaches I had never seen). After that, I put the controller in place, the led lighted, and when I tried to write something have worked only enter. Then I pressed the controller to a membrane and the keyboard started to work but not all keys. When I unpressed the controller, the only enter worked again. I didn't do a bolt mod. What I should do to know what the problem is? Is it may be a problem with the controller, or with a membrane? A screenshot with working keys when the controller is pressed to the membrane is attached (but it's not include numpad. on numpad works * enter 4 6). Thanks for your help. Peace!
I was hoping somebody who tinkers with Ms more would have chimed in but there's a lot of commonality between M and F.
Do all of the keys feel and sound right? If you have any broken plastic rivets, they're not all going to feel and sound exactly the same, but if anything is out of whack the spring is going to sound really muted or have a bit of a buzz sound to it and you might have extremely light tactility by comparison to other nearby keys. Any outliers that look like they aren't related to a whole column being dead like on the left side there might just need their caps and/or springs reseated. I have needed to do this even without disassembly sometimes just transporting Model M or F boards around by car. It is one of buckling spring's weaknesses. Opinions differ on the process. I remove the caps for individual problem keys and tip the keyboard so that the cable/SDL connector side faces down and the keys face the horizon and look at the springs. They should be relatively centered with a bit of a droop within the barrel (not so much as to touch the barrel). You can compare to nearby springs on keys that already feel and sound about right. If nothing looks misaligned, you might just need to try reseating the cap until all is resolved with that key. This also seems to be best in the previously-mentioned orientation (SDL connector/cable facing down, keys facing the horizon). If any of the springs don't look quite right, I have had some luck carefully sticking some really fine needle nose pliers or tweezers down the barrel to pinch the spring near where it attaches to the flipper to scrunch it onto there with better alignment. A tube with an inner diameter about the same as the spring (like a straw) and some chopsticks or skewers are probably less troublesome and fiddly. The process there would be to slide the tube or straw around the spring and gently compress the spring with the chopsticks a few times to try to center everything again. Sometimes pulling the springs off and trying to reseat them entirely is necessary, and if you permanently kinked any of the springs while the board was apart, they may need replacement. I would probably only attempt this if you do have a setup similar to the chopstick method. I have been able to do it with pliers, but you'll be swearing quickly without
a lot of patience, and most pliers really aren't narrow enough for that kind of work.
If you do have a lot of rivets missing near where keys aren't working, there's also the possibility that the flippers aren't seated properly anymore and you might have to drill out all of the rivets and do a bolt mod, unless somebody has a trick to somehow magically realign everything without a teardown. I have gotten lucky with Fs without plate disassembly by just mashing the keys like they owe you money, but that's hit or miss, and the design is a little different.
If it doesn't look like broken rivets could be related, and you know all of the caps and springs are seated right, does your membrane have any perceptible damage? Where, specifically, are you pressing to get it to work? Is it folded like a piece of paper anywhere it shouldn't be? The traces could be broken if it is. Do the contacts where the membrane meets the controller look undamaged and not oxidized? If they do look oxidized, you could try lightly cleaning them with some rubbing alcohol, maybe 70%.
I hope that's at least a good starting point. Problems like this are why I'm glad I vastly prefer Models F anyway.
Random question: Are you tinkering with a Model M in the middle of a war zone, or do you live abroad? Slava Ukraini, and screw Putler.
