Filco Zero

[iggysaps]

Any feedback on the Filco Zero, tenkeyless?  I looked it up on elitekeyboards.com and it is definitely a lot cheaper, and is rated at 20M actuations, as compared to the 50M actuations of the other Filco keyboards.  Anyone know the reason for this?

Thanks in advance!

[zwmalone]

Because it has ALPS switches instead of Cherrys

[bigpook]

Have you ever used white alps switches?

Its a great keyboard but the white xm switches felt balky to me and actually made my fingers tired. Something the model m does not do. I ended up replacing all of the letter keys with new black alps switches I harvested from a NIB Dell.

YMMV of course. But it is a Filco and is a very well made keyboard.
I actually prefer the black alps switches over the cherries, at least right now : )

I just checked out elitekeyboards. That pricing is excellent. I had to have mine shipped from overseas.
Where the heck was this majestouch a year ago when I needed him : )

[bigpook]

I came around full circle, sort of. I am back to the kensington expert. And  I am using it on the right hand side. My elbow is still not quite right. Otherwise I would be using the orbit on the left hand side of the board.

The expert is one smooth trackball. Its very slick. I have a kensington turboball(which was NIB, but without the box) and a kensington turboring. These are both nice mice and I would be using them but they are opto-mechanical. They use the rubber wheels and I am sorry to say that they are no where near as smooth as the expert.

I think the expert is the king  of all trackball mice. : )
I will stand around now, and wait to be flamed.


As for the cherries, I still love my brown cherry filco. But right now the black alps is pretty awesome. I have been using it for 3 weeks straight now. And have no desire to swap it out.

[IBI]

Have you ever used white alps switches?

Its a great keyboard but the white xm switches felt balky to me and actually made my fingers tired. Something the model m does not do. I ended up replacing all of the letter keys with new black alps switches I harvested from a NIB Dell.

Have you tried real white alps, and if so how did they compare?

[bigpook]

Have you tried real white alps, and if so how did they compare?

You know, I have yet to try real white alps. Though there are members here that have. Hopefully they will chime in.

The filco with white xm is very nice though. But I felt it required more force to press the key then even a BS switch, which is saying something.
I went so far as to grease the stems, some links of interest:
 
link

link

Others may disagree, maybe. Wait a day or so, and other members will post here too.

[kyamei]

Did you desolder the switches to change them to black or are the click leaves/springs compatible?  The white alps copies I've dealed with had different shaped internals from real white/black alps.

[bigpook]

I had to desolder and replace them entirely. The click leaves were different and could not be swapped. There is a thread somewhere here where we tried that...

Here are some pics that show the difference.
link

[kyamei]

Desoldering eh, that probably took a while.  The internals look pretty similar to the copies in some of the Focus boards I've tried, so I'd assume the feel is pretty similar as well.  I'm not much of a fan of any of the Alps-type switches, but for some reason I find myself tempted to buy one.  Blue cherry Filcos better come quick before I start buying things I don't want.

[bigpook]

I only changed out the lettered keys and it still took me about 5 hours to do it all.  I wouldn't want to do it again. It was tedious beyond belief.  I like all of the keyboards in my sig and the model m mini's are my favorite but its nice to change out every now and then .