Need help identifying switches in Facit T90

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Morron

07 Jul 2018, 11:46

I have no idea what switches they are, but they are linear and sit in a Facit T90 typewriter. I’ll post a picture and a video I found!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Dwjdt1_Tqw
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Findecanor

08 Jul 2018, 05:14

Most electric typewriters have quite cheap boring switches. They were much cheaper than computers back in the day.
In the video, it looks like it has a white plate, which often indicates plastic which often indicates cheap switches. But of course there are exceptions.

These keycaps do remind me of Cherry ... and Facit did sell rebranded Cherry keyboards but the Caps Lock and Carriage Return keys are quite unusual.
The only keycaps with LED window I have seen for Cherry have had the window in the front because the LED is in the front of a regular switch. That LED position would make sense for a separate LED or a Cherry MX Lock switch (which is the only Cherry switch with a LED in the corner).

Another low possibility is that maybe they were Ericsson switches. Apparently, Facit folded into Ericsson Data before it disappeared completely.
While the printing on the typewriter is close to Cherry's font, the % sign on the typewriter in the video is a better match to that on this Ericsson keyboard.

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Morron

08 Jul 2018, 22:20

Findecanor wrote: Most electric typewriters have quite cheap boring switches. They were much cheaper than computers back in the day.
In the video, it looks like it has a white plate, which often indicates plastic which often indicates cheap switches. But of course there are exceptions.

These keycaps do remind me of Cherry ... and Facit did sell rebranded Cherry keyboards but the Caps Lock and Carriage Return keys are quite unusual.
The only keycaps with LED window I have seen for Cherry have had the window in the front because the LED is in the front of a regular switch. That LED position would make sense for a separate LED or a Cherry MX Lock switch (which is the only Cherry switch with a LED in the corner).

Another low possibility is that maybe they were Ericsson switches. Apparently, Facit folded into Ericsson Data before it disappeared completely.
While the printing on the typewriter is close to Cherry's font, the % sign on the typewriter in the video is a better match to that on this Ericsson keyboard.
Thanks for the informative answer! I'm going to go get the thing on thursday. Will post pictures if I manage to get the keycaps off. :)

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Morron

12 Jul 2018, 17:41

Turns out that it was neither! This is how it looks under the keycaps! They look a bit like IBM Buckling springs but they are linear and use a spring around the stem.
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green-squid

12 Jul 2018, 17:42

spring over membrane, shame.

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Blaise170
ALPS キーボード

12 Jul 2018, 19:37

Disgusting! Amstrad leaf spring over membrane. One of the first vintage boards I ever bought had those and they were not only needlessly complicated but they also felt awful.

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