geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: DarkForce on Sat, 03 October 2020, 21:05:28
-
Hey guys, been a lurker here for a little while and just finished my first built that I am quite proud of (minus the keycap set that I ordered which is currently back ordered, so I'm using a band-aid key cap set to hold me over.
My issue is this: even though I tested all my stabilizers before I soldered, and they all worked great, for some reason, after the build was complete, I noticed that my space bar stabilizer is royally screwed up. I'm not sure if there is too much lube on the wire itself, but the wire keeps popping out of the housing. Even when I get the wire back in, the space bar doesn't pop back up, which I believe happened before when a stabilizer was over lubed. Currently, the space bar rattles a lot but is at least usable if I keep the wire popped out of the housing on the stab.
The task of desoldering the entire board to fix this seems daunting (I did desolder a few switches already, however I really would like to avoid having to do the entire board.)
Is desoldering the entire board my ONLY remaining option? I really hope not. If it is, does desoldering hurt the longevity of the switches themselves?
Thank you in advance!!
-
over lubing stabs shouldn't make the stabiliser pop out. Got a picture of how it looks?
-
I had a similar issue with a backspace stabilizer but it ended up being a plate issue. The plate was bent ever so slightly that the stabilizer wire would push itself out every so often.
-
My issue is this: even though I tested all my stabilizers before I soldered, and they all worked great, for some reason, after the build was complete, I noticed that my space bar stabilizer is royally screwed up. I'm not sure if there is too much lube on the wire itself, but the wire keeps popping out of the housing. Even when I get the wire back in, the space bar doesn't pop back up, which I believe happened before when a stabilizer was over lubed. Currently, the space bar rattles a lot but is at least usable if I keep the wire popped out of the housing on the stab.
The task of desoldering the entire board to fix this seems daunting (I did desolder a few switches already, however I really would like to avoid having to do the entire board.)
Is desoldering the entire board my ONLY remaining option? I really hope not. If it is, does desoldering hurt the longevity of the switches themselves?
Thank you in advance!!
I agree with Sup - a picture is worth a thousand words. IME, I had issues with my spacebar stabilizers where spacebar didn't want to come back up or was uneven and even a time where I was trying to get my tight keycaps off the switches on a hot swap board and the stabs were so tight they refused to come out and eventually pulled the entire slider out of the housing which required disassembly to put it back in unfortunately. Luckily no desoldering in that case but still happened. Are you sure you had the wire end inserted into the right spot in the stab? is there a lot of bend happening with the wire trying to get around the spacebar switch? Is the switch completely flush to the PCB?
As long as you're not overheating anything, desoldering/resoldering shouldn't hurt the switch life. I would recommend getting a quality solder sucker if you go that route. I learned early not to skimp on that as getting a clean solder point prior to removal/install. I've bought a few 'broken' keyboards on ebay only to discover the auctions usually involve damaged boards due to improper soldering/desoldering where they've ruined contacts, pulled out traces, or melted components.
Crossing my fingers you can resolve without desoldering!