Cheapest keycap swap

[Hak Foo]

My holiday gift was a promise for a  G80-3000lscrc-2.

I want to do a setup like
http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=138962&postcount=93
How can I most cheaply replace the keycaps?  Not the F1-F12 set.

I see MX11900s at $22 shipped, second hand, but some other board might be cheaper still

[AndrewZorn]

what is it you want?  you say not F keys, do you mean the same clear caps, but on the rest?  or are you just trying to do anything to get rid of the chinese?  i dont understand why you want to replace brand new POM keycaps.

[Hak Foo]

what is it you want?  you say not F keys, do you mean the same clear caps, but on the rest?  or are you just trying to do anything to get rid of the chinese?  i dont understand why you want to replace brand new POM keycaps.

I want to replace the Chinese.

[PRISONER 24601]

weird. I got my brother a 3000lscrc-2 for christmas (and a brown cherry pos board). He's all excited about keyboard switches now. I hope he doesn't find this place. He was showing the blues to his girlfriend, and was like "check it out, press the button slowly. it gives you resistance- THEN it clicks and activates, then it goes down more!" She looked perplexed and a little bit frightened.

[PRISONER 24601]

Also, i swapped those keys because the PBT caps on the G86 feel a bit smoother to me than the G80's (pom?) caps. Is PBT inferior to POM? I'm not sure about this.

[AndrewZorn]

i thought the chinese looked cool!  man, if my only cherry keyswitches "on me" werent korean (which i assume is no better) (excluding the blanks i want to keep) i would trade you in an instant for those POM ones.

what a shame.

[PRISONER 24601]

what makes pom better than pbt?
i really did like the texture and look of the original keys, but the pbt g66 keys felt smooth like teflon and I wanted to try it out. Now I want to swap them back for some reason

[AndrewZorn]

i guess im a little partial to POM from waterblocks
PBT, i do not know

but OP sounds like he would rather have Filco ABS caps!  if you arent going to go for blank, i think the complicated look from all the chinese characters is kind of neat.  wish i had something to trade him.

[bsvP585hUO2Y6]

ripster wrote on 5960 September 1993:

> I don't think anybody has done a real PBT vs POM analysis. And the
> Filco's definitely aren't ABS.

Haven't we seen Filco keycaps deform in hot water? A glance at Wikipedia
revealed the following temperature limits (deg. C):

ABS: 85
PBT: 150
POM: 163

[AndrewZorn]

oh, i thought that was something i heard here.

[bsvP585hUO2Y6]

Found it: http://geekhack.org/showpost.php?p=144577

So I guess it is safe to say that Filco keycaps are neither POM nor PBT.
I wonder why ripster is so sure they aren't ABS.

[keyb_gr]

Check the last page of the Destroying The Boscom for Science post.

I think it may be time to resurrect that one.

The Filco key melted well before the Lego brick started to get soft.

Then again, a Filco key is much thinner, too.  

The other thing is how lightweight these Filco keys are.   I think they are run of the mill cheap plastic - some polycarbonate.  I could be wrong but Majestouch didn't know what they were made of either.

Polycarbonate has a rather high melting point (glass transition temp is below that, at 145°C). I think you meant polystyrene:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_melting_point_of_polystyrene_foam

Polystyrene Bead insulation should not be used above 80c and the product starts to soften at greater than 70c with decomposition happening at 220c.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem03/chem03714.htm

When heated with water inside, polystyrene
containers sagged and deformed, but polypropylene containers did not.

(The glass transition point for PS seems to be at about 100°C.)

P.S.  My Cherry Double Shots are starting to get shiny.

What vintage? It seems all the older ones (at least 1996 and earlier) are not PBT. Well-used ones tend to be entirely shiny. They can yellow quite a bit, too.

[PRISONER 24601]

That's it, I'm swapping the POM keys back into my G80. Right now, if my room reaches 150 degrees I'm screwed. At least with the POM, I'm covered for 163.. and realistically, it would never get that hot in here. 150 maybe

[keyb_gr]

My soon to be shiny doubleshots are PBT.  At least that what the spacebar sez...

So they're black? That explains it then. Light-colored keys can be nice and shiny and you won't be bothered one bit under most lighting conditions. Black ones are unforgiving.