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geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: intelli78 on Sun, 15 March 2015, 21:19:37

Title: Making a Novatouch stemmed Realforce 86u work with an off-center caps lock
Post by: intelli78 on Sun, 15 March 2015, 21:19:37

Let's say I swap Novatouch stems into a RF 86u. At that point it would fit a winkeyless Cherry set fully except for the caps lock and spacebar. The spacebar would require physical modding to fit new stabs (as 7x Topre spacebar stem spacing is different than Cherry 7x) but the contact pad is in the center, so it wouldn't need to be moved. I think I have a clear idea about how to do this.

However, with the caps lock, I am less sure how I would proceed. After I cut the plate to move the switch, I'd either have to rework the PCB to move the contact pad to the left, or somehow rig it up so the off-center slider still pushes the spring down onto the pad in its original location.

Thoughts about the best way to do this?

Title: Re: Making a Novatouch stemmed Realforce 86u work with an off-center caps lock
Post by: Oobly on Tue, 17 March 2015, 11:47:45

Mod the keycap rather. Move the stem.

Don't think it's going to be possible to mod the board to match the cap without doing some SERIOUS reworking.. By that I mean possibly having a new PCB made and transferring the SMD components... Even then, you have to be super careful with track widths, etc, to match the original PCB capacitances close enough.

Title: Re: Making a Novatouch stemmed Realforce 86u work with an off-center caps lock
Post by: intelli78 on Wed, 18 March 2015, 04:25:38

Hmm, I would definitely not want to mod any caps I'd use on this, they're all vintage Cherry.

Maybe some kind of adapter to laterally press the spring in its original position...