Swap domes on Realforce

[amospalla]

Hi guys,

I own a 45g JIS layout Realforce but I think I would enjoy more a 55g one. Topre sells a 55g JIS model but I can't find it anywhere so I've thought about buying a 55g ISO/ANSI one and swap its domes.

Do you know if that is something feasible and not too much complicated? By complicated I mean dangerous, not time consuming.

[Muirium]

Gotta swap the domes. The springs are there for sensing, not for weight.

[amospalla]

Gotta swap the domes. The springs are there for sensing, not for weight.

Oh thank you very much, didn't know.

That explains why I could not find any information. Searching on google by domes instead of springs has very different results.

[amospalla]

By looking at some photos it don't really get if every key dome is replaceable with another one randomly or there are some domes that are joined to others forming a single plastic piece.

Looking carefully again, I can see cleary on Realforce keyboards that each key has a single separated dome, but only on HHKB it seems some keys are joined forming a single dome board containing several keys.

[seebart]

Just yesterday I took apart my used RF completely for cleaning. Now I would be very careful. It looked to me like the domes were joined in a "mesh". One seperated and came loose, I spent a figidy ten minutes getting it back on the exact right spot for reassembly, with the spring of course. I don't know if it's possible to simply drop all the domes in the housing and reassemble the other way?

[Muirium]

Sounds like you were doing it upside down. Let me dig up 002's video guide for this. Dome swaps are easy. But sourcing then is nightmarishly expensive!

Here we go:

Hey guys. I made my first ever (talky) video demonstrating how to open a Realforce.

I made a few mistakes here and there:

- At the start, I suggest that the Realforce is not held together with any screws. I should have clarified there that I meant just the case is held shut without screws, which becomes obvious pretty soon in the video

- I mention that the black screws don't go into the mounting plate, but they do. The difference is that the silver screws have threaded standoffs that they go into, whereas the black ones don't.

I have opened a YouTube channel called 'Deskthority', and if anyone else is interested in posting keyboard related videos or tutorials there, I should be able to make you a contributor/admin/whatever YouTube calls it.
Also, I am not sure why the video is in 360p, sorry about that. The raw file is in 1920 x 1080 resolution so don't know what happened there. Hope it's useful!

[seebart]

OK good video thanks. I did it both ways. But on mine it seemed like to me the dome sheet was about to come apart which would make things slighty more tedious. Of course face down is the way to go.

[amospalla]

Thank you guys, I think I am going for the 55g board.

[seebart]

I got a variable here but my FC660C is 45g uniform which is nice too. I never tried 55g uniform.

[amospalla]

Yay, got the 87U at massdrop currently.

omg omg omg omg can't wait for it to arrive

omg omg omg.... omg omg...

[Muirium]

I'm sure Spanish customs are looking forward to it too!

[pyrelink]

Domes aren't all that hard, but I have to say that working on my HHKB has not only been the most frustrating keyboard to work on, but I have had the worst possible luck. Those darn domes are so fidgety. I was just inside putting on all of Hyperspheres silencing rings (which work just perfectly, I might add) and took me longer to get the thing back together then to put the o-rings on. I am now missing a spring (I don't know if I lost it just now, or earlier but I cannot find it anywhere) so now right command doesn't work (but I don't use it much anyway). The stabilized sliders took forever to get back together so they have lost a lot of their lube (a tiny bit scratchy now).

Anyway, I guess what I am trying to say is, Topre boards are crazy tedious but as I am sure you know, are unrivaled in their feel and quality.

[amospalla]

I've readen somewhere that Topre springs may overlap in a way you may not realize there are two togheter.

I am not afraid of having to invest time in changing domes, I only hope nothing breaks, but I don't think that may happen by watching at the videos. For me Topre 45g is almost quite perfect, so testing 55g is a must (an expensive must ). 45g is quite nice but I feel I want more tactility. On the other hand, force actuation is almost perfect, I hope 55g is not excesive, time will tell.

[Muirium]

Exactly what Amospalla said: those conical springs are sneaky and just love to hide inside one another. I remember 002 saying this on his video too.

The only Topre boards I've had open are NovaTouches. They're presumably pretty similar to work on to a Realforce. I found the bloody NovaTouch case harder to crack than all the subsequent work! Modding Topre switches with damping rings is more my kind of work than opening up MX switches, let alone Alps, for spring mods. It's not all that detailed, and there are few risky moments. I prefer it to working inside of IBMs as well.

The HHKB, meanwhile, could well be different. I got a Type-S and feel no need to monkey around with it!

As for 45g vs. 55g; my Realforce is 55g and my HHKB is, of course, 45g. They definitely feel quite different to each other. It's something like the difference between MX black and MX red. In both cases, I prefer the lighter version. I've nothing bad to say about my 55g Realforce, it's truly a magnificent board, I just find I fly that bit more smoothly on my HHKB. This Realforce reminds me of my SSKs, and I use it with similar relish. There's some extra magic, though, in the light and delicate little HHKB.

Thinking specifically about the tactility of the two weights, I'd call them equal. Heavier switches can feel less tactile in general because the mechanical bump is the same size as on lighter switches and gets dwarfed by the extra spring weight. (Force diagrams are the best way to see this.) Topre compensated for this very nicely, giving the 55g more tactility as well as extra weight. (You can see this in their typical Topre S-shaped tactile curves.) But they didn't overdo it. The result is, for me anyway, they feel equally tactile. And get this: 35g Topre feels juicy tactile too. Topre does domes right!

Trying a uniform weighted 35g Realforce at HaaTa's place really opened my eyes to how nice those can be.

[pyrelink]

Interesting. I might just have to crack this open again and take a look for a double spring. I have found that Topre O-rings were pretty easy to do if you forget about the opening and closing of the case. Alps and Cherry spring and lube mods aren't challenging, they are just incredibly time consuming, and I think IBM boards are the most challenging. IBM boards require the most work, and strength, and they also have the added bonus of sharing Topre domes affinity for popping off when you are trying to close everything up (springs+hammers falling out of barrels).

A white 55g Realforce is certainly next on my to buy with excess money list. I still don't think I could ever do a dome swap though. Something about choosing the 55g domes over the 45g, and making a franken-realforce just feels wrong.

[amospalla]

Reading your comments I feel I may end just selling the 55g. The 45g is almost perfect on the force required to press the keys. Well, maybe I may end trying all of them, 35g, 45g and 55g. What a mixture of feelings

If only I had not bought this JIS one it would be much easier, not only I can't stand other switches right now, but other layouts also, these three extra modifier keys allows me to do things I just can not any way on ISO. Now my route has to consider things like dome swap. What a curious hobby

[002]

Woo! Team 45g

[Muirium]

45's nice. I've an inkling that 35's nicer. But I'd need a board of my own to know for sure!


@Amospalla: what are you using those extra JIS mods for? I'd like to know if I can remap them to anything useful in OS X, which is where I'd use one. No JIS boards at all in my collection…

[002]

Just thought I'd point out there is no such thing as uniform 35g. HaaTa's board is uniform 30g.
I have a uniform 30g board (ND31BS) and it's nice but I much prefer a bit more tactility. 30g is maybe similar to Cherry red which I do like too, just prefer a bit more feedback.

[Muirium]

I stand, as always, corrected! My numeric dyslexia is alive and well, even just in double digits.

30g Topre didn't inspire me on your variable weight touring board. But it was damn nice on HaaTa's black JIS Realforce. I expected less tactility, too. But there was more than enough there. Was just a quick test though.

For comparison, my very initial first reaction to 55g Topre was YIKES! HEA-VY. I fast became used to it, though. It's no heavier than my buckling springs. Yet striking compared to the 45g I was accustomed to.

[amospalla]

Yes, right, looking at the wiki there are not any 35g, only 30g. Maybe 30g is too light as you point, trying the 55g will let me rest in peace from this pain

@Murium: I use a window manager where every alphanumeric key is a virtual desktop, one of the modifiers is to move between virtual desktops. Before I had to do Win+Shift combo, now the modifier is just one key and also much easier to reach. I have managed this for years without this extra key on standard ISO but always felt wrong, now is a joy.

On a second modifier I've mapped vi/readline like keys, so I've got things like h/j/k/l like cursors, f/b like pgup/down, i as insert key and other similar ones.

Lastly, and not less important, other modifier behaves like Enter key, sounds strange, but it is on a position my right hand doesn't need to move at all unlike when pressing the Enter key, which needs my hand to move a bit and thus lose its reference to the j key which anoys me, not to mention the omg how quiet is compared to hitting Enter fastly.

That last paragraph remembers me another good thing of JIS, space bar is very small and so very quiet. With this and the small key being used as Enter, typing on this keyboard is quite silent. I am waiting for silent mods from Hypersphere to improve it, what a keyboard dream it has to be.

I think you should remap them on Mac without problems, these keys behave like others, if you can remap for example your 'a' key on Mac to anything you may think of, you will also be able to map these 3 extra modifiers.

There are still a couple of extra keys (left to delete and left to right shift) which doesn't have any mapping on ISO, but I have still not found anything interesting for them.

[Muirium]

Those gram numbers are quite misleading. HaaTa's 30s didn't feel ZOMG LIGHTNESS!! to me, despite being further from 45g than the 55s. Yet my first taste of 55 was indeed CRICKEY PETE IT IS HUGE!

Anyway, I too need to try (owning) more weights of Topre boards. I'd better call the bank…

Re: JIS. Thanks for the details. I'm no Linux guy, so all I really had in mind was this:



Either JIS adds a couple of extra rows to reassign, or I'd need to install Karabiner. Should be good either way!