Laser VTCL F810 repair and wiring up extra key

textadventurer

25 Sep 2023, 09:08

Hi folks, I recently acquired a Laser VTCL F810 with Alps SKCM Blue switches: wiki/VTCL_F810

Upon pulling the caps off, the switch for the letter F broke. Something of the plastic gave in and broke off, and it looks unrepairable. I'm considering swapping the switch with one of a key I don't use (SCROLL LOCK or PAUSE/BREAK come to mind). I wonder if it's as simple as desoldering the two switches and swapping them.

Also, there's a dummy key between CTRL and ALT. I have the same on another keyboard (a Shi-Tec) and it's very convenient, you kinda get the three modifier keys that are there on modern keyboards. The wiki says:
... the switch is electrically connected to the controller, and appears to have just been not used
Checking with Karabiner Events (on Mac) it shows no event when pressing that key. I wonder if it can be made functional? I don't mind hooking it up to another key (again, SCROLL LOCK or PAUSE/BREAK) and then through software mapping it to the key I want (OPTION). Solder some wires to those keys? Other tricks you folks can think of?

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