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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: mungry on Fri, 30 December 2016, 12:45:53

Title: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: mungry on Fri, 30 December 2016, 12:45:53

Has anyone tried something like this before? Like taking all the components out of the matias housing, then putting all the vintage components back into the matias housing. Theoretically it should work? I've been thinking about doing something like this. Or am i completely wrong here, the vintage parts wouldn't agree with the modern parts?

Title: Re: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: menuhin on Fri, 30 December 2016, 12:55:01

Interesting idea.
I'm curious about the outcome also.

Title: Re: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: Waateva on Fri, 30 December 2016, 12:59:52

I thought that the "guts" of Matias switches and Alps switches were different, therefore this might not work?

Title: Re: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: chyros on Fri, 30 December 2016, 13:10:52

IIRC the parts of an Alps switch like the leaf springs are slightly bigger and won't fit inside a Matias switch.

Title: Re: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: merlin64 on Fri, 30 December 2016, 13:34:12

Matias are copies/upgrades of the simplified Alps design. The complicated Alps have more parts and thus won't fit inside the Matias housing.

Title: Re: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: ctm on Fri, 30 December 2016, 20:46:22

Hypersphere has done some experiments on mixing vintage Alps and Matias.

AFAIK, vintage complicated Alps has a complicated switch plate, which does not fit into Matias housing. Also, I have tried fitting a vintage Alps tactile leaf into Matias housing, but cannot. The side metal tabs on vintage Alps leaf is slightly larger.

Title: Re: Vintage alps components inside of a matias clear housing?
Post by: klennkellon on Sat, 31 December 2016, 02:09:33

The springs used in the original SKCL/SKCM Alps are a bit smaller than the Matias. I have tried swapping the springs and it does work but it can be annoying to get the spring to sit upright when you put the slider back on.