Dismantling the TrulyErgonomic

[utku]

Hello everyone,

In my quest to replace mx browns of my faulty* TECK with some salvaged mx blues, I've been stuck at the very start. It seems I cannot even dismantle the top cover from the board itself. All the screws and the tabs at the top part are off but it looks like there is something holding it in the upper middle section of the board which I cannot seem to access. Is there anyone who has done this before?

* yeah the board is faulty, it has some severe repeating keys problem and the firm itself seem to ignore my messages for a replacement, so what the hell, I've always wanted the blues in this thing.

[BlueBär]

Here's a picture showing all the screw positions. Note that there are two extra screws under the sticker.

However, are you sure the issue are the key switches?

[utku]

update: I could remove the cover once I was aware there were two more screws hidden behind the sticker. I guess they're there for warranty invalidation purposes, or maybe just idiotic design. I was almost going mad and cracking the whole thing to pieces.

@BlueBär: what would be the problem if not the faulty switches? If it was a firmware error almost everyone would have this problem.

[BlueBär]

Putting stickers over screws for warranty reasons is actually quite common.

The controller or the PCB could have some kind of error. In this case, rather the controller. How many keys have that repeating issue?

[utku]

I'm hoping it's the switches that are faulty at this point. The controller is a tiny ass chip which you can't even read without a magnifier, there's no way I could fix that in case.

There were around 5 keys defective. One of them being the left space key, it ruined the whole thing. More strangely, these symptoms started showing up after a few months of occasional usage. Everything was fine in the beginning, or I remember as so.

[BlueBär]

A controller usually doesn't get fixed, it gets simply replaced (if there is a replacement available). In this case my guess is that it's a controller issue (except if something got spilled over your keyboard or anything similar).

[utku]

Nope, no spillage or other environmental factors did happen. Not even dust. It was probably faulty from the get go but I wasn't aware till I started using it heavily. Or maybe it was the custom layouts/firmwares that I frequently reprogram lately. We'll see. I'm gonna sacrifice an unused filco as soon as I have my hands on a desoldering kit. 

ps. Even if I could find a replacement chip it would be impossible for me to replace that tiny little thing, I'm barely able to solder/desolder switches

[utku]

let me update how this went for the posterity.

yep i did change the switches to blue. it was one hell of a time. took me almost a whole day. removing the switches are too hard because of all the bent switch pins (even if the desoldering is easy).

now after all that pita, bad news is i bricked the board while i was upgrading the firmware  . i'll be demanding a pcb from the company (if one can ever get a hold of them).