HP 9845 workstation keyboard (ITW Magnetic Valve)
Posted: 06 Sep 2019, 01:02
I first saw this board placed for sale by tentator in his recent sales thread and instantly thought it looked cool, scientific numpad, thick doubleshot keycaps, an Execute key and at an acceptable price, The original listing was unknown switch type, however with some digging through the wiki thanks to the recognisable swith pinout I saw they were likely the early version of ITW Magnetic Valve switches. I went along with the purchase and then it arrived on Monday.
Keycaps are thick doubleshots and are Microswitch hall effect compatible HP cap on Left, Microswitch cap on the right
HP cap on Microswitch and Microswitch cap on Magnetic Valve
When i first saw the pictures in the sale thread something cought my eye as strange, the arrow cluster in the top middle of the board was on a daughterboard that was offset from the main pcb. Upon desoldering the board so i could thouroughly clean the switches, plate and PCB I discovered that the cursor keys were in fact double action.
The double action switches have 6 pins as can be seen in the pcb through holes for the switch legs.
As you can see there are 2 ferrite cores at different levels on the lower part of the stem. The upper part of the stem houses a small spring shown by the brass colour in the centre of the stems that passes through the hole on normal switches. This second spring is compressed after the normal larger spring has compressed so the switch has twice the travel distance of a normal switch for both actuations.
The switches in the arrow cluster needed to be on a daughterboard because of the increased length of the double action switches. The switches that are not double action in the arrow cluster have extended pins that match the extra height of the double action switches.
I still need to clean the switches using an ultrasonic bath to hopefully remove any dust that may have gotten inside the swiitches. My biggest hurdle is going to be attempting to convert this. I have none of the logic circuitry, this was obviously handled on the main system this board was originally a part of. Any help from the Dt community will be much appreciated.
Keycaps are thick doubleshots and are Microswitch hall effect compatible HP cap on Left, Microswitch cap on the right
HP cap on Microswitch and Microswitch cap on Magnetic Valve
When i first saw the pictures in the sale thread something cought my eye as strange, the arrow cluster in the top middle of the board was on a daughterboard that was offset from the main pcb. Upon desoldering the board so i could thouroughly clean the switches, plate and PCB I discovered that the cursor keys were in fact double action.
The double action switches have 6 pins as can be seen in the pcb through holes for the switch legs.
As you can see there are 2 ferrite cores at different levels on the lower part of the stem. The upper part of the stem houses a small spring shown by the brass colour in the centre of the stems that passes through the hole on normal switches. This second spring is compressed after the normal larger spring has compressed so the switch has twice the travel distance of a normal switch for both actuations.
The switches in the arrow cluster needed to be on a daughterboard because of the increased length of the double action switches. The switches that are not double action in the arrow cluster have extended pins that match the extra height of the double action switches.
I still need to clean the switches using an ultrasonic bath to hopefully remove any dust that may have gotten inside the swiitches. My biggest hurdle is going to be attempting to convert this. I have none of the logic circuitry, this was obviously handled on the main system this board was originally a part of. Any help from the Dt community will be much appreciated.