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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: dante on Tue, 26 November 2013, 22:05:32
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According to this, SMK mounted Alps cannot be transferred to another board due to pin layout. Is this correct?
The keycaps are compatible with Alps CM but the switch has a different mounting hole and pin layout. A coiled spring provides most of the resistance, and there are two leaf springs for contact and click/tactility respectively.
http://deskthority.net/wiki/SMK_Alps_mount
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If you are referring to "blue Monterey" switches, tough luck.
As I understand it (I have never even tried it) the pin layout makes them incompatible with anything.
Too bad! If you figure out a way, let us know - I would gladly strip my Chicony 5181 and put them somewhere else.
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"SMK Alps mount" is possibly a hard name to parse; at the moment, we have no idea what SMK called them.
They're SMK switches that take Alps keycaps — I started referring to them as SMK Second Generation, and this comprises "Montereys" (the blue ones that take Alps keycaps), "white Montereys", the ones that take Cherry keycaps, and the ones that take SMK's custom keycap mount. None of these switches are interchangeable with any other brands. Strictly speaking, there seems to be a gap between the most-recently-seen SMK linears (last seen around 1984) and "second-generation" switches (first seen around 1986), but no other SMK switches appear to have turned up. I would be really interested to know what was sold in that gap. The US patent for "second-generation" switches was filed in 1987.
I don't class them as Alps clones for a second reason: the internal mechanism is based on their (SMK's) old linear switches (the first known SMK switches to date), where a ramp on the slider levers the movable contact away from the static contact. The lintel contact was replaced with a piece of bent wire, but the idea is the same. It's got far more in common with Cherry M7 than Alps designs.
(So far, HaaTa hasn't turned up any 1970s SMK switches ... while Cherry's switches (M6/M7) go back to the early 70s! We're also unclear on when Futaba's switches first appeared.)
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"SMK Alps mount" is possibly a hard name to parse; at the moment, we have no idea what SMK called them.
They're SMK switches that take Alps keycaps — I started referring to them as SMK Second Generation, and this comprises "Montereys" (the blue ones that take Alps keycaps), "white Montereys", the ones that take Cherry keycaps, and the ones that take SMK's custom keycap mount. None of these switches are interchangeable with any other brands. Strictly speaking, there seems to be a gap between the most-recently-seen SMK linears (last seen around 1984) and "second-generation" switches (first seen around 1986), but no other SMK switches appear to have turned up. I would be really interested to know what was sold in that gap. The US patent for "second-generation" switches was filed in 1987.
I don't class them as Alps clones for a second reason: the internal mechanism is based on their (SMK's) old linear switches (the first known SMK switches to date), where a ramp on the slider levers the movable contact away from the static contact. The lintel contact was replaced with a piece of bent wire, but the idea is the same. It's got far more in common with Cherry M7 than Alps designs.
(So far, HaaTa hasn't turned up any 1970s SMK switches ... while Cherry's switches (M6/M7) go back to the early 70s! We're also unclear on when Futaba's switches first appeared.)
i was going to say ask daniel............, but looks like he already responded to ur post