Cherry G80-3700 Red Mod (Plate, Switches, LED, Cable, Caps, ..)

[Paranoid]

Hi guys,

Thought I'd share the mod of my G80-3700
It's mostly lots of pictures so I don't have to type up too much. Be sure to click on the "more" button for more pictures!

1. Taking this lovely numpad apart and desoldering all of the switches.

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2. Sanding the Stainless Steel plate. Thanks to The_Beast for his continued hard work for the community.


3. Putting the new switches into the plate. A combination of the bottom of the old switches and the rest of the new switches since they weren't PCB mounted.

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4. Placing the plate on the PCB.


5. Fitting the female headers for the solderless switching of LEDS.


6. Soldering the switches. Don't be a lazy idiot like me and forget about the U-shaped thingies inside of the pcb-mounted switch because obviously the numpad won't work otherwise.


7. Stickering and lubing (Victorinox Multi-Tool oil and a mixture of Krytox GPL-205 and GPL-103).

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8. Cutting the case to fit with the SS plate.


9. Assembly without cable

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10. Making the custom cable. Including design and 3D print of the fixture for the case.

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11. Full assembly

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12. Placing the red LED

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And that's it! The red themed Cherry G80-3700
Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks!

[phetto]

Nice job, looks very clean. Great quality on the pics which is always a plus.

[Pacifist]

Where do you get those solderless LED heads? And if you have a plate with slots open to remove tops with plate mounted boards, can you open the top?

[metalliqaz]

very nice

[Dubsgalore]

awesome job, love the photos 

[Paranoid]

Thanks guys

Pacifist, maybe it's not clear on the pics but that is a plate where you can use tools to open the switches. It came from the_Beast. So yes, you can still open the switch up since the pins are inserted in the bottom half of the switch.

For the LED pins I'll just copy what I said over at DT:

About the LED pins, I originally had the inspiration from an article on KBDMania. I only found the article again after I already did the mod 
http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/index.php?mid=best_article&document_srl=6246034&6246034_cpage=1

This guy tried different approaches to use these female headers. I also tried different things but figured I didn't want to do the effort of chamfering all of them precisely so I just cut them open completely and used only the pins. I did this for a whole keyboard as well, took me quite some time.

You can find em very cheap on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3Pcs-Single-Row-40Pin-2-54mm-Round-Female-Pin-Header-/140910386490?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:BE:3160

But be advised, you have to be mentally prepared to do this for a whole keyboard   

You can see how I did it for a Ducky Shine II TKL here:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=50784.0

[Photekq]

Nice job, and love the LED pins

[Photoelectric]

Thank you for the write ups and the information!  Do those housings come in 3 sets of 40 housings?
Just making sure I understand the listing, and you can confirm.  Then each kit is good for 60 LEDs, right?  2 kits per TKL or full size keyboard.

[Paranoid]

Wow, never got a email about your question Photoelectric! The listing is good for 60 LEDs. 3x40 pins. 2 kits would be recommended in case you break some. They're dirt cheap anyways ^^

[Photoelectric]

Wow, never got a email about your question Photoelectric! The listing is good for 60 LEDs. 3x40 pins. 2 kits would be recommended in case you break some. They're dirt cheap anyways ^^

Thanks, already ordered a bunch and they arrived yesterday   In your other mod thread, there's an eBay link to them.  Thanks again for posting these mods!