Realforce durability (an unplanned test)

[wellington1869]

So this morning I dropped my realforce 87u (by accident) about 4 feet onto a thinly-carpeted floor.  



Since I'm the type to make lemonade out of lemons, I took this as an impromptu opportunity to test the everyday durability of the realforce keyboards.

This isnt shag carpeting, its very thin with a very thin foam pad underneath a short-and-close-cropped rug. Pretty hard actually.

The keyboard weighs over 2 lbs, so there was quite a thud after it travelled four feet.

WHats more, the realforce dropped on its edge  (upper left edge).

Now, if this were a M, I'd expect all the rivets to be gone. (I know, you can drive a truck over your M, but for the love of god dont drop it on its edge).

The only visible damage on the realforce was a separation between the two halves of the keyboard in the upper left corner (the upper left tab that holds the two halves together came 'unpopped', which I pushed back into place (it popped back into place with a click)).

Plugged it in, and everything seems to be working fine.  

[timw4mail]

So this morning I dropped my realforce 87u (by accident) about 4 feet onto a thinly-carpeted floor.  



Since I'm the type to make lemonade out of lemons, I took this as an impromptu opportunity to test the everyday durability of the realforce keyboards.

This isnt shag carpeting, its very thin with a very thin foam pad underneath a short-and-close-cropped rug. Pretty hard actually.

The keyboard weighs over 2 lbs, so there was quite a thud after it travelled four feet.

WHats more, the realforce dropped on its edge  (upper left edge).

Now, if this were a M, I'd expect all the rivets to be gone. (I know, you can drive a truck over your M, but for the love of god dont drop it on its edge).

The only visible damage on the realforce was the upper left tab came 'unpopped', which I pushed back into place (it popped back into place with a click).

Plugged it in, and everything seems to be working fine.  

I remember dropping my M onto concrete about 4 feet...a few keys popped off...but it still works perfectly to this day...but that does explain that rattling sound...

[o2dazone]

I dropped my HHKB onto hard tile. Nothing would have broken, but because I had the roof on it, the side that's supposed to protect it, pushed against the top row key and snapped it off at the stem. Nothing else was broken, but I rolled with no keycap for about a week

[wellington1869]

I dropped my HHKB onto hard tile. Nothing would have broken, but because I had the roof on it, the side that's supposed to protect it, pushed against the top row key and snapped it off at the stem. Nothing else was broken, but I rolled with no keycap for about a week

tragic!
in that case i'm glad i didnt have a roof, lol.  Its like when there's a car crash and the drunken guy who wasnt wearing his seatbelt is thrown clear and survives while the conscientious sober guy who has his seatbelt on dies

[CrapTypist]

Yay!  Glad to hear, Welly.  I'm currently typing my a** off on my RF and want it to last for-fricking-ever if possible.

[wellington1869]

Yay!  Glad to hear, Welly.  I'm currently typing my a** off on my RF and want it to last for-fricking-ever if possible.

in terms of quality construction and materials, the RF is tops. You can tell instantly when you open it up. Every part is thick and meaty and machined really well with so much attention to detail.  Its like Ruskin said about gothic architecture, that if you climb up those soaring church towers and look at the gargoyles at the top of it, you'll find the craftsmanship every bit as perfect as the figures at ground level, even though the sculptors knew at the time that no one would ever see the gargoyles near the top up-close like that.  There was no reason to do it except a personal love of quality. Its the same with the RF. You open it up and you see every screw hole marked with arrows and perfectly clean soldering and thick quality materials even though no one is ever going to (ordinarily) open it up and look inside it, its a work of art in there.

I dont know how much stress testing the good folks at Topre did, but man, its one solid looking and feeling piece of work.  If the M is a workhorse Chevy truck, the RF is the BMW of keyboards really.

[xsphat]

I liked my RF a lot, but don't dare take my word for it since I'm evil (and I never dropped it either).

[rdjack21]

:faint:
Yes the RF boards are very well built but still I'm glad it was you and not me. But still good to hear that it held up to the drop.

[microsoft windows]

Your story about dropping your keyboard inspired me. I dropped my Model M on an edge on the cement floor and all that really happened was it made a loud noise, got scuffed, and the trackball fell out and rolled into a corner where it took me a while to find it.

About rivets on an M--I've had to take a few out of mine once to take apart part of the construction to repair the keyswitch on the right Alt key. The remaining rivets are still perfectly fine to this day and the keyboard works fine.

My other keyboard, some old NEC Technologies robber dome, actually has a steel plate SCREWED to the membrane (what a nice thing to have) making it more serviceable, which was an advantage when I fixed the NumLock light.