Can you open MX Switches?

[GreeN]

I've only owned my FKBN104M/EB for a couple of weeks now, but after a few beers and a late night at the computer I couldn't help but wonder what its guts looked like. Naturally, I pulled out the Phillips and butter knife duo and got to work on the casing (In which I'll say was very easy to remove! There are only 4 clips on the bottom side of the case - No sand-paper edges here). Within a minute or two I was staring in awe at what I can only describe as the anatomy of a very well produced keyboard. Joy.

After ravishing the PCB with my eyes and removing a few key caps, I found myself fixated on these Brown Cherry MX Switches, so beautiful and sleek. But more "importantly", the lovely shaped indents on the switches which invited the company of a little LED. I had never experienced or appreciated Cherry MX Switches this closely before, and this came as a little bit of a surprise that the switches were built to accommodate such enhancements.

Now, I thought to myself, I had already spent around $230 on this keyboard (Shipping and charges included), I couldn't possibly make a pretentiously vain attempt at spending even more money on this board and modding it to look like it was throbbing with radioactive gorgeousness to exploit my limited knowledge in electronics, could I....?

Short answer; Yes, definitely! I'm far too fixated on this idea to leave it behind.

The main problem I see at the moment is the fact that each and every switch is mounted onto that chunky metal plate, and soldered directly onto the PCB, seemingly leaving no room for any kind of leeway to achieve this recently developed dream. Upon further examination, the switches seem to be rather simply designed and I wondered if they were easy to dismantle? If wires could be fed through the switches themselves, I'd have no problem at all guiding them where I need them.

The mental image of de-soldering 200+ contacts AND replacing them without any bends or breaks doesn't really appeal to me so much. I'll probably end up giving it a go if its the only way, anyway. But this is what scares me.

Let's hear your thoughts on the matter, geekhackers! I've got a good camera to make a lovely big mod-post if/when this goes live

[huha]

If you want to open them, they need to be desoldered. I don't see any other way. I'm not exactly sure what you want to achieve, but when it comes to using LEDs, why don't you glue SMD LEDs to the metal plate?

Anyway, you asked:
Tool of the trade:


When not plate-mounted, you can use it to open the hooks holding the upper casing in place. It takes a bit of training, but if you get the twist, it's fast. You don't even have to open the board, just pop off the keycap and open the switch. Very handy when swapping the spacebar's and Pause/Break key's spring on a G80-11900.

As far as switch innards are concerned, basically it consists of the casing (2 parts), switch leaves with gold crosspoint contacts (two parts), not easily removable, plunger (1 or 2 parts depending on actuation characteristic) and spring. Plunger and spring can be easily swapped if you get the casing open:



-huha

[GreeN]

As far as aesthetics go, I really wouldn't like to be able to see the LED's while they're not in use. The gaps in between the keys are not great but it would definitely be noticeable.

Looking at the switches from above with a light source underneath the PCB, you can clearly see two pin holes for the LED's to sit into. I wondered if these holes were in the bottom half of the switch casing, or the top half - Dictating the possibility of a much easier installation

[keyb_gr]

So the switches are plate mounted in the Filcos? That's tough then. Otherwise you could pop the lid off. Populating them with LEDs would, however, still be tricky then (how'd you connect these?).

[GreeN]

Really interesting page there mate, cheers! Though, from looking at one of the pictures there, the holes are indeed on the lower party of the casing.

As for attaching LEDs, it would be as "simple" as popping them straight onto (And through) the switch casing, then wiring them up with individual resistors on a parallel circuit under the mount. This is how I imagine it anyway - Anyone with some more knowledge on the matter, please do feel free to step in.

As for de-soldering those contacts, maybe it wouldn't be as hard as I imagine? I think I have some braid downstairs which should do the job nicely. If I end up bending any of the contacts while re-assembling it though I think I'd cry!

[huha]

I'd at least use a desoldering pump, but I think that's a matter of personal preference.
MX switches can be bought from digikey etc. (check the wiki), so even if you destroy one, you can buy spares.

-huha

[bsvP585hUO2Y6]

GreeN writes:

> As for de-soldering those contacts, maybe it wouldn't be as hard as I
> imagine?

I did successfully desolder and resolder 105 switches on my Cherry
G80-3000 after pouring orange juice into it.  The switches on it aren't
plate-mounted though, so I guess it is not directly comparable.  Also,
my cherry used leaded solder.  If you have a RoHS conformant board,
desoldering is probably harder because of the higher temperatures
needed.

> I think I have some braid downstairs which should do the job
> nicely.

I'd recommend using wick.  I actually started using a 10¤ pump by EDSYN,
but switched to wick after a couple switches because the pump needed an
annoying amount of maintenance.

> If I end up bending any of the contacts while re-assembling it
> though I think I'd cry!

The switches are quite robust.  Mines survived an ultrasonic mass bath
in completely disassembled state.  I needed to put my wiring-pen kit to
use though after I stripped a trace on the PCB by thoughtlessly pulling
on the wick while it was sticking to a pad...

[GreeN]

I've never owned or used pumps before, and although they look handy at the time, I've got far more confidence using braid (English term for wick?), so I'll probably stick with it, regardless.

I may just have to give this a bash! I have no doubt there'll be some tears somewhere along the line but I'm a persistent bugger and won't give up until I have achieved my vision!

I wonder what would be the best way to splice up that USB cable. It's 5V from the USB connection, am I right? Should be plentiful.

[talis]

Braid/Wick is the same thing, a simple solder pump (manual type) is the silver thing in the picture below.  The pumps can get more automated, with built in vacuums etc, but they tend to become a pain to keep working.



A well maintained pump will almost always work better (and a lot cheaper) then wick.  And yah, yah I know I promised a soldering guide, I will get to it someday ><.

[LEXX911]

Sorry to hijack this thread.  I have a Steelseries 7G using a Cherry MX Black switches.  I"m wondering if I could snap the switches open without having to open up the board.  This reason is that I want to know what causing my SHIFT key to grind onto something and making it stuck while pressing down.  I see that the G80-11900 also uses the Cherry MX Black switches.  Can I use the same method by using the hook and where do I place the hook?



http://s918.photobucket.com/albums/ad24/KAI_BRUNNENG/?action=view¤t=SHIFTKEY.flv

[sixty]

Sorry to hijack this thread.  I have a Steelseries 7G using a Cherry MX Black switches.  I"m wondering if I could snap the switches open without having to open up the board.  This reason is that I want to know what causing my SHIFT key to grind onto something and making it stuck while pressing down.  I see that the G80-11900 also uses the Cherry MX Black switches.  Can I use the same method by using the hook and where do I place the hook?

Show Image

http://s918.photobucket.com/albums/ad24/KAI_BRUNNENG/?action=view¤t=SHIFTKEY.flv

Problem here might be the stabilizer not the switch itself (switch looks fine on the picture). However the steel series uses plate mounted switches.. there is no way to open them (or remove the stabilizers) without desoldering them.

[watduzhkstand4]

I really don't like the stabilizers on the Filco. Please don't flame me for this but a couple nights ago I was playing TF2 on my blue cherry tenkeyless and I got thirsty so I went to go open a bottle of snapple. I got mad because we lost the game and accidentally spilled some on the left shift key. It was a pain to put the shift key back in because of the stabilizer. But yea I was heartbroken in general because I dirtied my lovely keyboard =( lmfao!

[LEXX911]

Maybe a dot of Lithium grease on the stabilizers would help.

Can't reach the stabilizers if you mean the stabilizer bar as the metal piece.  It's sandwiched between the board holding the switches and the circuit board.  I have no clue how to remove the top switches mounted to the board from the circuit board.

The SHIFT key stabilizers gets stuck or hit something if I'm holding or pressing the key down above the word SHIFT(I think this tilt the stabilizer bar on an angle or out of alignment) but it goes down very smooth if I push it straight down with my finger below the word SHIFT.  But the right SHIFT key doesn't have this problem no matter where I'm putting the pressure.

[o2dazone]

The longer key stabilizers are similar in frustration on the Cherry. The only difference I found, is the counter points where you mount the stabilizer to is attached to the PCB on the Cherry boards. When removing a key, you have a chance of pulling the stabilizer mount point off the pcb itself, and then it's just like the Filco, a free moving piece of plastic you have to put back in. In all though, they're very durable, and can take a beating yanking on pieces (assuming the plastic isn't brittle or old). Hope you got it all worked out

[nanu]

I assume you've pressed the switch itself without the keycap, or put a square keycap on it to test the switch independent of the two stabilizers to its sides.

I would uncase the board and check how the stabilizers are clipped onto the metal switchplate.  Peeping from the side, you might figure how to remove the left one, but unlikely the one to the right, depending on how it's attached.

EDIT: Oh, I see. the metal balancing wire is embedded, too? :/

[LEXX911]

This is what the board looks like without the case.  






I don't know if I can open this up.  Should I RMA the board? The SHIFT key is very annoying since I use it alot.

[LEXX911]

Woohoo!  Found the problem!  Turn out it just the faulty plastic of the switch that wasn't molded properly and was too close to the switch.  So everytime I push down on the SHIFT key it makes contact with the plastic piece at the top.
 


Here's what it should look like:



So I did surgical cut with the exacto knife and all is good and smooth once again.



Thanks people for the help.  I'm glad I didn't decide to pull the thing apart.

[LEXX911]

I think if I had that blue cherry switch.  I don't think the faulty plastic pushing in would affect it.  Seems to me the + on the cherry blue switch is further away from the edge then the black switch.

I'm not surprised one of these faulty switch gotten through.  I can imagine someone sitting there with a big magnifying inspection glasses going through hundreds of these.  Years ago my brother brought these tiny plastic pieces and offer me a job of inspecting the the good and faulty one and without a magnifying glasses either.  I give up doing it because I couldn't see the difference between the good and the defective one.

I've read somewhere on this board that someone who also own one of the Steelseries 7G is also having this issue but never thought about it because he avoid it by pressing it at a proper angle or place so that it doesn't make contact.

But you're probably right that the good batches somehow gotten damaged during some process.

[DillonHightower]

i own a filco and believe me when i say u have to de solder those bad boys .. i tried for about an hour on one switch . could not get the casing off for the life of me .. i was sweating my ass of , then i looked around and realized the metal was not letting the plastic  tabs up.  ended up ripping off the plastic due to it being destroyed if the prying . any how  i ended up de sodering that one switch to repair it . put a new housing on it and soldered it back on .. good as new . but do not expect to get a switch off with a screw driver , on a filco . if u want different switches , buy the right one in the first place , or have paticents for 105 soders X 2 . each switch has 2 points to solder