Realforce assembling technique

[phinix]

I was wondering, who do you guys put your Realforce together when doing things with it.

Do you place springs and rubber domes first on pcb, or on plate, then carefully align pcb on plate?
Or other way around?

[shadowku]

For any Topre board, I've always been putting the plate (with sliders and all) upside down, and then align the domes on each slot, followed with the springs. After I, as gently as possible, drop the PCB on it and then put on a few of the screws, plug it in and see if I messed up. If I mess up (happens more often with Leopold + BKE), I take it apart and try again. It's a bit tedious sometimes.

I find the easiest way to do this is to remove the keycaps on either sides of the board and then use two heavy boxes to prop the keyboard enough so that none of the keys are pressed when you're aligning the domes.

I feel like doing it the other way would be much more difficult because after you drop the plate on the PCB, you'd have to somehow either put on a few screws while it's still right side up, or flip it over without moving any of the domes.

[phinix]

For any Topre board, I've always been putting the plate (with sliders and all) upside down, and then align the domes on each slot, followed with the springs. After I, as gently as possible, drop the PCB on it and then put on a few of the screws, plug it in and see if I messed up. If I mess up (happens more often with Leopold + BKE), I take it apart and try again. It's a bit tedious sometimes.

I find the easiest way to do this is to remove the keycaps on either sides of the board and then use two heavy boxes to prop the keyboard enough so that none of the keys are pressed when you're aligning the domes.

I feel like doing it the other way would be much more difficult because after you drop the plate on the PCB, you'd have to somehow either put on a few screws while it's still right side up, or flip it over without moving any of the domes.

Yeah, this is how I always do as well - align all on plate, then slowly put down the pcb.
Thing is, it will always work, but to feel if its all good, all perfectly aligned, you need to screw all screws back in - When you screw just few to hold it all together, some keys will feel odd, like they all must be pressed firmly to feel right.

[biothermal]

I feel like doing it the other way would be much more difficult because after you drop the plate on the PCB, you'd have to somehow either put on a few screws while it's still right side up, or flip it over without moving any of the domes.

Maybe I'm just a heathen but this is the way I've always done it... If you make sure it's sandwiched correctly before you flip, and as long as you have a firm grip then usually it only takes one try.

[shadowku]

Yeah, this is how I always do as well - align all on plate, then slowly put down the pcb.
Thing is, it will always work, but to feel if its all good, all perfectly aligned, you need to screw all screws back in - When you screw just few to hold it all together, some keys will feel odd, like they all must be pressed firmly to feel right.

I screw on probably 3/4 of all the screws which makes this task a bit tedious.

Maybe I'm just a heathen but this is the way I've always done it... If you make sure it's sandwiched correctly before you flip, and as long as you have a firm grip then usually it only takes one try.

I've always felt that if I did it your way, I'd misalign if I slipped while flipping it over. But I don't think I've ever had a mishap on any of my keyboards except for my Leopold FC980C which took many, many attempts before I realized what was happening. For BKEs on a Leopold board, you have to put in the springs as gently as possible. Once I learned this, I didn't have an issue.

[Riverman]

I had always left the domes on the PCB, and then I'd set the plate on top of it, but the last time a dome or two kept moving on me and it took a half dozen tries to get the keyboard assembled correctly.  I finally tacked the offending domes down to the PCB with a tiny bit of Vaseline, and that did the trick.  I think that putting the domes and springs on the key mechanisms and then setting the PCB on top of all that would be a much better idea, and that's what I'll do in the future.