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Author Topic: Alps.tw Type T8  (Read 2477 times)

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Offline canebarbone

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Alps.tw Type T8
« on: Sun, 14 April 2019, 10:51:15 »
Hi, some time ago I purchased two old keyboards for 1€ at an electronics expo.

After doing some digging through the deskthority wiki page I am pretty sure that one of them is the italian version of the CMI MO-1101C (OEM is Ortek), and uses a four-tab ALPS clone known as alps.tw type T8.

The switches and keycaps are very dirty, and they bind like crazy when stroke off-center. Also, several keycaps broke their stem inside the switch slider (they can be easily removed tho).

Is there a way to revive the switches (cleaning of some sort, like the chyros method?) and maybe harvest them to build a new keyboard, or restore the old one? Are these alps clones worth the hassle in the first place?
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Offline Rob27shred

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Re: Alps.tw Type T8
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 14 April 2019, 11:24:11 »
Honestly since these use the simplified design they're really not worth the work you'd have to put in to get them back to a decent condition if that is even possible. With most ALPS switches & their clones, once they've gotten very dirty & scratchy even cleaning them ultrasonically doesn't do much to help the feel. Once they have been beaten into the ground there is no good recourse IME. If you really want to restore the boards you could desolder the switches & replace them with Matias switches. The caps on the other hand may be worth cleaning up if they are double shot ABS or dye-sub PBT. Decent ALPS caps are pretty hard to get ahold of so there could be some value in them.
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Offline canebarbone

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Re: Alps.tw Type T8
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 14 April 2019, 11:46:46 »
What an interesting twist! I thought of sacrificing the board to harvest the switches, turns out the opposite may be the best course of action...

Actually the keycaps seem to be quite good and the pcb works.
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Offline Sup

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Re: Alps.tw Type T8
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 14 April 2019, 13:41:22 »
Quote from: canebarbone on Sun, 14 April 2019, 11:46:46
What an interesting twist! I thought of sacrificing the board to harvest the switches, turns out the opposite may be the best course of action...

Actually the keycaps seem to be quite good and the pcb works.

If you like the keyboard you could always solder original Alps switches in.
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Offline chyros

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Re: Alps.tw Type T8
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 14 April 2019, 14:23:06 »
Coincidentally I'm doing a review on T8 switches in two weeks xD .
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Offline canebarbone

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Re: Alps.tw Type T8
« Reply #5 on: Mon, 15 April 2019, 13:14:00 »
Quote from: chyros on Sun, 14 April 2019, 14:23:06
Coincidentally I'm doing a review on T8 switches in two weeks xD .

Nice! So I will know if they are hiiiiiiiiiiiiiideous or not!
I love your channel man, keep up the good work  :)
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