IBM model F XT: tab removal and boltmod experiment

[PlacaFromHell]

Hello. I think it was hour to contribute a little bit after all the help I gor from this place. Well, here is my little boy boltmoded and (mostly) working. All tabs where removed after drill the keyboard plates and PCB, also the spacebar barrel has some holes. I had to touch the grounding trace a little bit to make the middle up bolt fit. All keys mechanically works, but the orange ones are not registering for some reason. I'll check the traces tomorrow to see if I drilled "a bit too much" or some loose bolt did some damage. I cannot tell them how it feels, it's like a normal model F, but sturdier, much more sturdier. I'm a man of heavy typing, so this is pure glory to me. Don't worry about the keys in wrong place, too excited to think about that

[xueyao]

What's the reason for bolt modding it though? From experience, the XT has one of the tightest sandwich between it's plates. Bolt modding is a bit unnecessary in this case right

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[PlacaFromHell]

My keyboard exploded when I was testing it, so decided to remove tabs. I feel much more secure right now.

[Quartz64]

After several unsuccessful attempts to assemle my F XT with clamps and hammer I've managed to do it with bare hands. I've bended top row of tabs by 1mm with pliers, inserted the backplate in the bottom tabs, fully shifted it, and top row just clicked with some additional force. The only obstacle was that rectangular cutout in the PCB, I had to make it a little wider (about 2mm) so the corresponding top tab could fit through it. At the and I've bended the tabs back.

[PlacaFromHell]

10 bare hands didn't work in my house. I used a lot of clamps to assemble it as Anakey and Fohat recomended. Worked fine, but spacebar wasn't cliking. In the second trial all was fine, until when I was testing it before put it in the case just exploded like a fucking nuke. I don't hate tabs, in my opinion it's just better have bolts.

[fohat]

when I was testing it before put it in the case just exploded like a fucking nuke. I

I have gotten irritated and even angry, but there have been many times that it took 3+ tries to make it work, and that is complete assembly and dis-assembly each time. You can't worry about some extra time and frustration.

But I don't think that it ever took over 5-6 iterations.

[PlacaFromHell]

All keys except Y, U, H, B spacebar and the marked numpad keys are working. I should have damaged the controller.