Found an AEK 2 at the store today

[johndavis33]

Why didn't anyone tell me this thing was so awesome? I ordered an ABD cable and adapter on ebay and they'll be here soon, but I've already had tons of fun with this thing.

I had no idea alps switches where so easy to mod. The dampened cream alps on this guy can be made dampened or undamped, linear, tactile, or clicky just with a few easy mods. The switches are also about as easy to open up as taking off a keycap!

I made the 6 switches in the navigation cluster into my own little alps switch tester, with the bottom 3 being undamped linear, tactile, and clicky switches and the top 3 being the dampened versions of them.

Pretty sure I like the clicky ones the best, but the mod for that is far from perfect. Also, I don't think alps linear switches work well. The travel is just too short. If I had my way, every linear switch would actuate at .5 milimeters and have like 2 inches of throw.

[Hak Foo]

It also has among the better quality keycaps you can find for ALPS boards... they're thick and PBT (except for the space bar).

However, they do have a few nonstandard aspects if you want to reuse them elsewhere.  The profiles don't match other keycap sets, a few stabilizer mounts are unusual, and the function  key row is rotated ninety degrees from the rest of the board.

Source:  using AEKII keycaps on my heavily modified board.

[jacobolus]

For a better clicky mod of cream Alps, use the click leaves from Matias clicky switches. Especially when combined with a lower-force spring, the result is a very nice clicky-at-actuation but dampened-at-bottom/top switch.

[jacobolus]

However, they do have a few nonstandard aspects if you want to reuse them elsewhere [...] a few stabilizer mounts are unusual, [...]

The stabilized keys actually work fine on every other Alps board I’ve tried (apart from the ones that use MX-mount stabilizers).. the trick though is that you need to find stabilizer wires with the proper bends in them. You might need to make your own stabilizer wires to get things working properly (that is, both the wires from the AEK II, and the wires from the other board might be incorrect for the mixed board–keycap combination).

[johndavis33]

It also has among the better quality keycaps you can find for ALPS boards... they're thick and PBT (except for the space bar).

However, they do have a few nonstandard aspects if you want to reuse them elsewhere.  The profiles don't match other keycap sets, a few stabilizer mounts are unusual, and the function  key row is rotated ninety degrees from the rest of the board.

Source:  using AEKII keycaps on my heavily modified board.

I was thinking of using these caps on my infinity that's coming with clicky matias switches. However, this board was... well loved. Lots of the PBT caps are already shiny. Judging from keyboards that are older than me with PBT key caps, I didn't even think that could happen.

Also, the piss yellow color of the spacebar betrays it's ABS-ness pretty well.

For a better clicky mod of cream Alps, use the click leaves from Matias clicky switches. Especially when combined with a lower-force spring, the result is a very nice clicky-at-actuation but dampened-at-bottom/top switch.

Are the click leaves from simplified alps compatible with the ones from the complicated ones?