Wyse terminals: what are the keyboards worth?

[davkol]

I might be able to get at least some of the following Wyse terminals: WY-120, WY-160, WY-285 and WY-325. Including keyboards. The question is — are these worth anything? I don't have any pictures, information about shipping and you name it, and I'm quite busy these days, so don't really want to spend too much time on this only to harvest some Cherry MX Blacks and cheap keycaps. Any thoughts, please...?

[TheQsanity]

The keys might be worth something. No one likes black switches. We have the gh60 gb coming soon and hypermicro in the later future. I would harvest pbc switches just because those would be in more of a demand.

[khaangaaroo]

But if the switches are vintage blacks, there will be greater demands for them because they feel smoother than modern blacks.

You might want to touch base with whiskytango: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=39771.0
He also acquired a batch of WYSE boards and parted them out not too long ago. He might have some tips for you.

[TheQsanity]

Wow, he had great prices.

[IvanIvanovich]

I would say depend on condition mostly. For quite used ones $15, and up to maybe $50 for brand new. I think generally you can make more from parting them out.

[SmallFry]

The keys might be worth something. No one likes black switches. We have the gh60 gb coming soon and hypermicro in the later future. I would harvest pbc switches just because those would be in more of a demand.

I like MX blacks.

[TheQsanity]

Blacks are just not as popular as other switches.

[esoomenona]

Blacks are just not as popular as other switches.

I would say Blacks are just as popular as any other switch. Maybe not stock, but then again, neither are stock Clears as popular as Ergo Clears.

[TheQsanity]

Well the price of them are usually lower than other keyboards. For example cmstorm or filco.
Not sure about their popularity as just switches.
What do people mod stock blacks to?

[esoomenona]

I've seen most people mod them with 62g springs, usually lubed and stickered. Again, if you're going by boards for sale these days, I don't think that's a good reference. Ergo Clears are one of the most popular, at least on this site, and there are hardly any boards at all that come with Clear switches these days via retail.

[whiskytango]

But if the switches are vintage blacks, there will be greater demands for them because they feel smoother than modern blacks.

You might want to touch base with whiskytango: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=39771.0
He also acquired a batch of WYSE boards and parted them out not too long ago. He might have some tips for you.

I don't have any experience dealing with the whole terminals, but if you had the part numbers off of the keyboards, you could find out more info about them. I can tell you that I sold the vintage black switches off the boards I desoldered for $0.30 ea. And I sold about 1000 of them so obviously somebody still likes blacks And I sold about 100 of the "modern" switches with the smaller cherry font for $0.25 each. I should add, I have gone through about 15 boards so far, and most of them had 10-20 modern switches per board and the rest were vintage. I got about about 175 modern switches out of 15 boards. Just my experience, YMMV

I also put some blue springs in some of the vintage black switches and made some really smooth ghetto reds for my wife's work keyboard. She seems to like it. Also used the leftover black springs to make me some ghetto greens which I really like.

The value of the keycaps would depend on how compatible they are and what condition they are in. I have sold a few sets of the WY-85 caps which are not very compatible with modern keyboards for $20 each. And they are in mint (as in never used) shape.

Oh and people are looking for the Cherry plate mount stabilizers you can get off these boards too. I sold them for $5 a set.

I can tell you the board part numbers I have dealt with so far when I get home if you want.

I also enjoyed tearing down and learning about these boards.