SKCC/SKCM Frankenstein Science

2ZQ · 01 Feb 2017, 02:30

I had a weird dream last night and woke up to try it before I forgot. The following is what I did.

http://imgur.com/gallery/kKsMS

I have been hoarding dozens of boards and parts and have plenty of sliders and switches to experiment with, so I figured what the hell. Maybe I can make a dream board out of all of these parts that has amazing caps as well, while preserving the integrity of the caps.

The process is in the gallery but will type quickly again.

I made a quick sketch after examination and (sorry I didn't measure), and re drew it to illustrate the process in case the pictures were a little hard to make it out.
First I cut off a large portion of the bottom of the SKCC slider. I then removed a small piece on the front(?) side just above that cut. I shaved the sides that seemed to be the exact same width as the interior of the SKCM slider, and they were (with a tiny shave extra). The only thing left to do was remove the bumps on the cap insert on the SKCC side of it (personal preference), and that was it.

Mass production of these would take a while. Especially if you had to have them all identical and perfect (which I do), but should be a fun project for a rainy day.

Time to get to work. Happy Alpsing.

PotatoMonkey · 01 Feb 2017, 03:11

This is great! I'll have to remember this if I ever find a good batch of sphericals.

emdude · 01 Feb 2017, 04:26

This brings to mind the Alps-MX adapters that never came to fruition..

Mattr567 · 01 Feb 2017, 05:22

Very interesting! It seems to work really well.

Although I bet someone could make an adapter based on the cut up SKCC stem, rather than having to ruin a whole bunch of switches

2ZQ · 01 Feb 2017, 06:43

Mattr567 wrote: Very interesting! It seems to work really well.

Although I bet someone could make an adapter based on the cut up SKCC stem, rather than having to ruin a whole bunch of switches

Fear not! I think I mentioned it in the imgur comments, but these were extra stock that has been accumulated from broken switches/boards! If anybody can make molds, would be more than happy to send samples.

seebart · 01 Feb 2017, 09:07

Very good idea! I like it except for the part of having to kill SKCC switches for it. On the other hand someone may be in a situation where threre is no other way to use really nice SKCC keycaps. I wonder when we will be seeing the first mod...

2ZQ · 01 Feb 2017, 12:05

seebart wrote: Very good idea! I like it except for the part of having to kill SKCC switches for it. On the other hand someone may be in a situation where threre is no other way to use really nice SKCC keycaps. I wonder when we will be seeing the first mod...

Definitely agree. Just realized my "get to work" may have been miscontrued as starting on this mod. Unfortunately I was actually late for work after taking the time to test and post the idea and result. My donor sliders and switches have been harvested over a long period and are not from workkng switches (generally the contact plate or bottom housing has disintegrated, and I save everything that I can).

In the end, I was just hoping that people with extra stock as such, would be able to use what they had to build (even temporarily), some impressive alps boards.

Happy Alpsing!

Orpheo · 01 Feb 2017, 16:00

Thanks a lot for sharing. This is a breakthrough! It actually gives me a strong motivation to get into to know Alps better by making one board!

Ail · 02 Feb 2017, 01:10

Oh man this is great! I have an entire bad PCB of SKCC greens that came with some sphericals I wanted to harvest. Definitely going to play around with this. Thanks for the idea.