I have successfully added stabilizers to my legendary DELL keyboard!

[kolektador]

This is my DELL SK-8115.



It has been my main keyboard since 2013.





A little backstory.

A few days ago I was cleaning up my stuff when I saw this. My DELL SK-8115 REV03 keyboard. I have long thought that I have lost this keyboard. It got me through college and was also the keyboard that I used in programming my first social networking site in 2017. I have been through a lot of stuff most of which are bad experiences and I have a few things that gives me peace of mind when the times are bad. Besides my guitar, this keyboard is one of those things. I am a "computer boy" as what people call geeks in my country and I don't go out that much, and this keyboard is what I held on to for most of the hours of the day for many years. Fast forward 2019 I got myself a mechanical keyboard which is a nice keyboard, and this DELL SK-8115 was stored in my old storage closet since then.

As I was cleaning stuff around the house, lo and behold I found my legendary keyboard still in tact and still looks as good as the day I saw it! I immediately plugged it on my PC and started using it! Surprisingly, I still love the tactility of this rubber dome DELL keyboard. I love it so much that I searched and bought 3 more of the same model just so that I could salvage parts when I needed to fix the main one.


On the other hand, now that I have an experience with a mechanical keyboard, I realized that the long keys of this keyboard is not stabilized (besides the spacebar and the right shift key). I then started thinking of ways to add a stabilizer to this one.


After a few days of ruminating, I have come up with a solution that works well. Here is what I did:

Left Shift key


(I used the white flat bendable thing from paper fasteners to hold the stab wire in place)


(I then used a "blank pickguard material" used for making electric guitar pickguards, to create the "hook" for the stabilizer wire)


(here is the shot of the two before attaching)


Shift key Stabilization test

Here is the Enter key:


(stab hook for the enter key)


(enter key with the stab wire)



Here is the backspace


(The backspace stab hook)


(The backspace stab wire)


The stab test for enter and backspace

If you're wondering where I got the stabilizer wires, I got it from the shift key of the 3 extra similar DELL keyboards that I bought 


Thank you for reading!

[invariance]

Nicely executed.
Thanks for sharing.

[Findecanor]

I know there were many different models with the same visual style as this one, but ... it was because of pain in my fingers after having used one of them that I switched to using mechanical keyboards full time back in 2010.

[kolektador]

I know there were many different models with the same visual style as this one, but ... it was because of pain in my fingers after having used one of them that I switched to using mechanical keyboards full time back in 2010.

You are right, this keyboard is also produced under the name L100, I have one of those and the keys are much stiffer on the L100. Obesrving their difference I found out that the stem for the keycaps on the L100 are much tighter and has a different shape, which has less wiggle, but in turn makes it much stiffer to press.

The rubber dome also differs from keyboard to keyboard. For example, I bought 3 more SK-8115 and all of them had different rubber dome tactility(softness) and they have different model numbers embossed on the rubber just beside the arrow keys. The one I particulary like is the one that has "CAV17" rubber dome which is also obviously clearer or more transluscent than "CAV18" or "CAV19", while the one I liked the least was the rubber dome with "CAV19" written on it.

Rubber Dome for SK-8115 CAV17 vs. CAV19

The CAV17 rubber is the softest of the bunch and is even better than the CAV19 rubber that was the default rubber dome on my Main DELL.


and then the rubber for the L100


The L100 the stiffer compared to SK-8115 has very different screw holes so the rubber dome on L100 is not compatible with the SK-8115 and vice versa.

[tp4tissue]

those space bars are really good, i don't really know that those other keys absolutely need stabilizers since lubing the shaft comes pretty close.

[mrhead]

I actually have one of the SK-8135 keyboards (with the palmrest) still in the box.  I found it in a box with a few of the WYSE keyboards that look like the AT-101 chassis but aren't.

[argentstonecutter]

Until six months ago I had been using the Dell L100 as my main keyboard for at least a decade and a half. I don't know how long, when was it introduced?