eMachines KB-0108 (Chicony)

[Phaedrus2129]

Tonight I took apart an old keyboard I found in a closet. This isn't as old as my other keyboards, but it has been around quite a while. The computer it came with had an Athlon 64 and was considered fairly powerful for its time, so that gives it a timeframe of about 2003-2005.

The computer has long since succumbed to the power supply issues that plagued early eMachines computers, but the keyboard remains. It's a rubber dome (or more accurately, membrane) keyboard like 99% of all modern keyboards.



I expected this keyboard to be a POS from some random Chinese/Taiwanese company that no one's ever heard of. But I was pleasantly surprised when I ran the UL number (e164844) to find that it was made by Chicony, a now defunct keyboard company with a rather varied past.

The model # is KB-0108

I was also surprised to find that the key feel wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Apparently they built them better back then than they do now, comparing it to my more recently made HP rubber dome keyboard.



It is, however, filthy.



In contrast to the Cherry G84 keyboard I opened up previously, here rather than discrete switches you have a hole through the plastic leading to a silicone dome.


The keys are not connected to the dome, so they require a more complex bottom to keep them steady.


Lettering appears to be rather mediocre pad printing, but it hasn't worn off yet which so I will give it some credit.



Screws have been unscrewed...


Open sesame!



Here we see the rubber dome sheet. There is a dome under every key, and when the key is pressed the dome "collapses". When the key is released, the dome regains its previous shape, pushing the key back up.

One surprise is that the inner housing is marked as being made of ABS, rather than the more common (and cheaper) PVC plastic used in most keyboards. Chicony apparently made slightly better boards than the cheap no-name ones you see today.


This is the membrane itself. It's actually three membranes; a top layer, a spacer, and a bottom layer. When a dome collapses it pushes down on the membrane, pushing contact points on the top and bottom membranes together through a hole in the spacer. This closes a circuit, and a signal is sent.


Lifting up the dome sheet you can see the undersides of the keys.


The media keys have a more complex mounting arrangement, presumably due to their shape or something. Those three media keys are actually all one piece of plastic, with individual keys "floating" on a thin, looping length of plastic.


This is the keyboard's controller, which is surprisingly simple since most of the logic occurs on the membranes.

On my Cherry board I didn't want to risk removing the controller... But I'm not as worried about losing this keyboard, so I'll take it out anyhow.




The controller PCB.




And there you have it, folks. Hope it was edjamacational.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

Very interesting stuff.  There are many rubber dome keyboards that are of perfectly good quality such as the one you have there.  Another example I have found is the old Dell Quietkeys with rubber dome sliders.  If the keyboard is properly taken cared of, it feels great to type on and will last you for some time.

[Phaedrus2129]

So I'm typing on it now. I've got it pretty much cleaned up. There's traces of stuff left where you can't see it, and a few keys have some slight discoloration... But overall it's amazing how much difference wiping down the entire board with 91% isopropyl, and soaking the keys in a 25% isopropyl solution, can make.

The key feel is excellent as far as rubber domes go. No "mush" at all, just a soft buckling. It's nice to type on something with full key travel that doesn't take 70g of force... but the bottoming out jars my fingers. I think I'd really like a Topre board, but don't think I can justify the $250.

Regardless, this shall be my backup keyboard. Even though the key feel is better in some ways than the Cherry G84-4100, the bottoming out is making my fingers tired already.

I'll post pics tomorrow.

[ch_123]

It's a rubber dome (or more accurately, membrane) keyboard like 99% of all modern keyboards.

You're talking about two different things. 'Membrane' is a contact mechanism - Model Ms are membrane keyboards for example. So are Cherry G81s. So are scissor switches. Conversely, you can have rubber dome keyboards that don't use a membrane - such as the capacitive Topre. So the correct name for that type of switch is rubber dome.

[Phaedrus2129]

Ok then.

Makes sense.

[keyb_gr]

Show Image

The controller PCB.

The keyboard controller chip is under that blob, BTW. Expect to see similar things in pocket calculators and other small microprocessor-controlled electronics devices.

Judging from the 0606 printing on the PCB, this should be a 2006 vintage board.

[Phaedrus2129]

You may wish to avert your eyes.












This thing was unbelievably filthy.


All the keys are off.


Here are the keys soaking in a 25% isopropyl alcohol solution. I wiped down the casing with 91% isopropyl. Once the alky had broken up the worst of the gunk I scrubbed everything down with a sponge and some warm water, then let it dry for a few hours. I got impatient, so I resorted to using compressed air to blow the water off the key switches.


Muuuuuuuccchhhh better. Not perfect, but no worse than if it had been used for a couple weeks.


And there you have it. A clean, working keyboard. These old Chicony boards hold up a lot better than most common boards. This thing has better build quality even than the Logitech G15, which goes for $90. These can be had for $16 shipped NIB on eBay, there's a seller who has a ton of them. I expected this to be crap, but after opening it up and seeing how well made it is compared to the majority of rubber dome keyboards (in terms of materials used and durability of the domes) I think I could recommend this over 90% of Logitech/Razer/Microsoft keyboards.

[Phaedrus2129]

This is an HP KB-0630 keyboard that came with an HP Pavilion I purchased in 2007. I'll start out perfectly honest here: there's probably some bias on my part, because I hate this keyboard. I mean, really, really hate it. And after opening it up, I have even more reasons to hate it.



Again, I was surprised to find that this keyboard was also made by Chicony, just like the eMachines KB-0108 which I was so pleasantly surprised by the other day. But this glimmer of hope soon evaporated.



Here's one of the things that made me hate this keyboard. It's so minor, but so unbelievably annoying. They put a SLEEP key right next to esc. A sleep key, as in a key that puts the computer in sleep mode. So if I'm playing, say, Left 4 Dead and go to hit esc... OOPS! I hit sleep, now my computer is basically shutting off and I can't stop it so my character is going to die. Fantastic. WTH, HP? This makes no sense.



Another day, another rubber dome keyboard.

Other things that pissed me off were the quick degradation of the key feel (my step-dad has this keyboard as well; it takes approx. 6-9 months for it to lose its feel completely) and the short, jarring travel time. It also feels rather flimsy. The bottom is painted to look like aluminum, but is actually just plastic.



So now opening it up I find some more signs of cheapness. One of the screwholes was already stripped before I started opening it up, and I think one or two more might have stripped on the way out. No putting this back together.




Yawn.


I was honestly shocked to find a marking on the inside casing saying this was made of ABS, because it doesn't feel like it. The eMachines keyboard took quite a bit of effort to flex, and the Model M's ABS takes even more. This flexes as easily as most PVC keyboard housings. I think it's using a more flexible, lighter formula of ABS, and in addition is substantially thinner, about 2/3 the thickness of the eMachines' housing.



Here's the membrane, pretty standard, so I'll just... Hey... waaaaait a second...



Hah! The eMachines didn't do this.

The membrane, as I've said before, is three layers: top, spacer, bottom. Here you can finally see them. Why didn't I show the separate layers on the eMachines keyboard? Simple: they wouldn't split apart because they were glued together all along the edge.

On the HP there are maybe a half dozen glue spots holding the layers together, so they can peel apart fairly easily. Even when only three years old, the glue on the outer glue spots has degraded to the point of worthlessness. Obviously this was a cost cutting measure. What does this mean to the user? The membranes are held more loosely together, and have room to curl or bunch slightly, and so it can take more effort to push a key down, and key presses on outer keys may not go through if it gets really bad. Shod-dy.




Here's the controller. I don't know why it's more complicated than the eMachines one, there's nothing special extra going on.



Here's one of its keycaps in comparison to a keycap from the eMachines (the other stuff there is so my camera can focus). Sorry, this is the best picture I can get. As you can see the eMachines keycap is far larger and thicker, and much more sturdily attached to the housing. Again, no calipers or other precise measuring tools on hand, but I'd say the HP's keycaps are about a third as thick, and weigh a quarter as much.

Both use pad printing, but while the eMachines board has full-key pad printing, the HP simply has decals. You can see what I mean in some pictures in the mechanical keyboard guide.



So. Final impression? Cheap. Thin plastic, thin cheap keycaps, stripped screwholes, poor layout of media buttons, poor method of holding the membranes together, poor key feel that quickly gets worse... This could be an archetypical "cheap-o" rubber dome keyboard. The funniest part of the joke? It's generally more expensive than the eMachines keyboard. :doh:

[EverythingIBM]

You should take apart a KB-8923, then you'll REALLY be impressed. Best rubber dome -- ever.

[Phaedrus2129]

There are some on eBay for cheap, but I want to wait to see what comes of the MX11800 auction before buying another keyboard.