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geekhack Community => Keyboard Keycaps => Topic started by: fohat.digs on Mon, 24 June 2013, 08:10:59

Title: Model M spacebar question
Post by: fohat.digs on Mon, 24 June 2013, 08:10:59
I have transplanted a picture from Matt30 to illustrate a question. (please forgive me, your project is beautiful by the way!)

Recently I bought a non-working Greenock M, and the spacebar had this same connector, which I had never seen before.

Is it a ground of some sort? Is is necessary, and/or can it be removed and discarded?

Thanks!
Title: Re: Model M spacebar question
Post by: snoopy on Mon, 24 June 2013, 08:56:18
It can be removed :)

And yes, as far as I know it was for some ground/electrostatic stuff or whatever.
Title: Re: Model M spacebar question
Post by: nsrexler on Mon, 24 June 2013, 10:41:15
If I remember correctly it's only there to comply with EU electronics regulations, and it doesn't actually perform any useful grounding function. Not sure why you'd need a ground on a plastic keyboard anyway...
Title: Re: Model M spacebar question
Post by: mkawa on Wed, 26 June 2013, 01:31:52
it looks a bit like that's suppose to tie the spacebar stabilizer and backplate together. !?!?! but in general the ground specs of the M series are high to the point of ridiculousness (imo, anyway, dorkvader has disagreed with me in the past).
Title: Re: Model M spacebar question
Post by: Lu_e on Sat, 29 June 2013, 13:57:44
lol awesome. retro stuff huh?
Title: Re: Model M spacebar question
Post by: rootwyrm on Sat, 29 June 2013, 19:03:27
Sigh, Greenock, why you do these things?

TL;DR version is this: don't remove it unless the controller's being weird. If you do remove it, the controller may go weird. Or it may NOT go weird. Why? Because it's a Greenock board. The ground strap there is not strictly to comply with EU regulations - it's sometimes functional, sometimes not. Depends who put the keyboard together and whether they were paying attention or not when assembling the controller. Oh, and there's at least three different ways I've seen it. (And now you begin to understand why I hate Greenock boards so damn much.)

If you wanna PM me, I can help debug. May need to be re-anchored properly.

EDIT: Oh, and I honestly don't think any experts in M's agree on whether or not the grounding setup is inadequate, adequate, or overkill. You should see the setup on M5's and M13's. *sigh*
Title: Re: Model M spacebar question
Post by: TacticalCoder on Tue, 02 July 2013, 08:51:33
Quote
Not sure why you'd need a ground on a plastic keyboard anyway...

Me neither but...

I could "reliably" reboot a friend's computer by touching his keyboard when I had a specific pair of shoes on. I take it I was slowly charging up with static due to the rubber-isolated shoes and then by touching his keyboard it would cause some SNAFU.

I don't remember which keyboard that was, I have no idea why the computer would reboot and certainly can't say if the greenock M's system would have helped or not but I guarantee you I'm not making this up  :)