Bad Damped Alps Remedies?

[Thorogrimm]

I grabbed a nice seemingly clean Apple Extended Keyboard II recently so I could try my hand at converting it, plus I've never owned a keyboard with cream damped or white damped switches.

Upon inspection, the inside of the keyboard was very dusty and the switches felt awful. The infamous dirty alps effect. I had previously owned another keyboard which had black SKCM switches and they didn't feel nearly as bad despite the condition of that keyboard being FAR worse.

So from there on, I attempted to clean the switches and added the click mod by increasing the angle of the tactile leaf.

Spoiler: They still felt shit. But now stiffer and incredibly tactile. This probably wasn't my best idea, but seeing as it worked on my Dell AT102W, I though "why not?"

To remedy this, I tested two of my only lubes which I had on hand: silicone grease and WD40 silicone spray (sprayed in a small dish). Both were applied thinly on two separate switches with a cue tip. No major improvements there and the scratchiness still prevailed.

I'm now stuck between deciding if I should:
A. Get some better lube (like TriboSys 3203) and try it on all the switches. Maybe also decrease the angle of the tactile leaf.
B. Linearise the switches, maybe lube them and get stiffer springs.
C. Desolder the switches, buy some Matias switches and solder them on.
D. Ditch the project and not spend any more money on a shit feeling keyboard

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Oh. Also. The number 6 key's stem broke off when removing the keycaps--it seems the previous owner had broken it somehow and tried to superglue it back on. So if anyone has any spare num row 6 keycaps for an AEKII to spare, please DM me.

[Muirium]

Alps can get real friendly with their caps, sometimes. Breaks do happen.

Now, I would *not* advise bothering with Matias switches. We all want them to work, because worn old Alps, amirite? But the new fuckers just fail too much to be worth it. What you really want is some real Alps switches in good condition, and to install those instead. I'm typing on an Alps 64 right now with vintage complicated Alps in it, as it happens. Great experience: so long as the switches are good and you store them right.

So Plan C then but bollocks to those awful Matias switches. You will regret them!

Mind, I'd think twice about the AEK II overall. They're a middling keyboard at best—and I've two of them myself, even NIB they're a bit meh*—so unless this board—or the *idea* of this board, properly fixed up—really speaks to you…

*Don't get me started on the rollover and the inherent limits in accursed ADB. And why the 3 lock lights when Macs never did support Num Lock or Scroll Lock and still don't? I kinda like the case, and the caps have a nice profile—typing on them now—but together they're a bit too flimsy for my taste. Needs moar metal.

[Thorogrimm]

Alps can get real friendly with their caps, sometimes. Breaks do happen.

Now, I would *not* advise bothering with Matias switches. We all want them to work, because worn old Alps, amirite? But the new fuckers just fail too much to be worth it. What you really want is some real Alps switches in good condition, and to install those instead. I'm typing on an Alps 64 right now with vintage complicated Alps in it, as it happens. Great experience: so long as the switches are good and you store them right.

So Plan C then but bollocks to those awful Matias switches. You will regret them!

Mind, I'd think twice about the AEK II overall. They're a middling keyboard at best—and I've two of them myself, even NIB they're a bit meh*—so unless this board—or the *idea* of this board, properly fixed up—really speaks to you…

*Don't get me started on the rollover and the inherent limits in accursed ADB. And why the 3 lock lights when Macs never did support Num Lock or Scroll Lock and still don't? I kinda like the case, and the caps have a nice profile—typing on them now—but together they're a bit too flimsy for my taste. Needs moar metal.

The dicey thing with Alps switches is, if buying on eBay, they're incredibly expensive. And anywhere else seems to be rather scarce unless I find someone on a forum who is selling them. But in regards to the keyboards speaking to me: It's a nice looking keyboard I'll give it that, but after having tried the switches I'm sorta questioning if investing more time and money in it is worth it. The whole thought process was that I'd be trying a potentially clean and nice feeling keyboard, then try my hand at soldering a converter to it. But of course, as it turns out, the switches feel awful.

[Muirium]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Good Creams aren't as highly overpriced regarded as Blues and Browns and such, so I'd keep an eye out round here, if not Ebay (spit). But Alps have gone a bit mental in recent years, that's for sure.

What layout is your AEK II? I was about to ask for the Mµ key if it was German (which is very often the case here on DT!), but I see that's not how Apple did it:

Spoiler:

How yellowed is the spacebar? Those can be useful for harvesting.

[Thorogrimm]

Yeah, I know what you mean. Good Creams aren't as highly overpriced regarded as Blues and Browns and such, so I'd keep an eye out round here, if not Ebay (spit). But Alps have gone a bit mental in recent years, that's for sure.

What layout is your AEK II? I was about to ask for the Mµ key if it was German (which is very often the case here on DT!), but I see that's not how Apple did it:

Spoiler:

How yellowed is the spacebar? Those can be useful for harvesting.

I've got the UK ISO one

[kelvinhall05]

Now, I would *not* advise bothering with Matias switches. We all want them to work, because worn old Alps, amirite? But the new fuckers just fail too much to be worth it.

Matias retooled their switches a while ago and they no longer chatter. They are also very smooth and nice to type on.


OP, I can vouch for Matias. Great choice imo.

EDIT: Also, 200 brand new Matias is $50. Good luck filling an AEK with nice, good condition complicated Alps for that little...

[Muirium]

Aye, these days. I got my own Alps for no more than that… many years ago.

I remember this topic of recent Matias switch reliability came up on DT in the last few months. People still had mixed reports about it. Matias keyboards in particular can come in a mix of good and baaaaaaaad switches, as I recall. And there's no obvious way to test the switches if you buy them individually. Couldn't they have changed the outer markings for us to stop folk from losing their minds?

Losing $50 on garbage switches isn't too much, I suppose. It's the effort you went through: installing them, discovering the cccchattttterr and subsequently pulling the fuckers back out again. one by one as they succumb. If you've the patience for a rolling repair project, I suppose it's worth your personally discounted while! Shame though, you'd get none of this upgrading a dirty vintage MX board with modern switches.

I've got the UK ISO one

Ooh: icon mods! Jealous.

[kelvinhall05]

Aye, these days. I got my own Alps for no more than that… many years ago.

I remember this topic of recent Matias switch reliability came up on DT in the last few months. People still had mixed reports about it. Matias keyboards in particular can come in a mix of good and baaaaaaaad switches, as I recall. And there's no obvious way to test the switches if you buy them individually. Couldn't they have changed the outer markings for us to stop folk from losing their minds?

Losing $50 on garbage switches isn't too much, I suppose. It's the effort you went through: installing them, discovering the cccchattttterr and subsequently pulling the fuckers back out again. one by one as they succumb. If you've the patience for a rolling repair project, I suppose it's worth your personally discounted while! Shame though, you'd get none of this upgrading a dirty vintage MX board with modern switches.

I've got the UK ISO one

Ooh: icon mods! Jealous.

Not very helpful to suggest stuff based on several year old information. My points still stand. Matias are by far the best value for OP. You sound like you've had a bad experience with the early revisions and it soured your taste, which is understandable, but they've fixed the issue they had and are a good buy now.

[an_achronism]

Not very helpful to suggest stuff based on several year old information. My points still stand. Matias are by far the best value for OP. You sound like you've had a bad experience with the early revisions and it soured your taste, which is understandable, but they've fixed the issue they had and are a good buy now.

I remember this topic of recent Matias switch reliability came up on DT in the last few months. People still had mixed reports about it.

I hope you're correct and it is indeed fixed, but it seems Muirium is saying that's been called into question. I recall Kaihua "fixing" the BOX switch stems bursting/damaging caps only for people to buy the retooled switches and find that they still damaged their caps so I'm a little wary of trusting blindly when a manufacturer says they've corrected an issue.

[kelvinhall05]

Not very helpful to suggest stuff based on several year old information. My points still stand. Matias are by far the best value for OP. You sound like you've had a bad experience with the early revisions and it soured your taste, which is understandable, but they've fixed the issue they had and are a good buy now.

I remember this topic of recent Matias switch reliability came up on DT in the last few months. People still had mixed reports about it.

I hope you're correct and it is indeed fixed, but it seems Muirium is saying that's been called into question. I recall Kaihua "fixing" the BOX switch stems bursting/damaging caps only for people to buy the retooled switches and find that they still damaged their caps so I'm a little wary of trusting blindly when a manufacturer says they've corrected an issue.

I've been using Matias quiet linears for some time now and have no chattering issues.

[an_achronism]

I've been using Matias quiet linears for some time now and have no chattering issues.

I'm seriously considering picking up the Quiet Click ones but I'm not sure what I'd do with them tbh. I don't think I really have a board that is Alps pin compatible that I want to take the switches out of...

[Muirium]

I was about to suggest an Alps 64 but then I remembered you're a fullsize or bigger kinda guy…

Are there any mahoosive custom Alps PCBs out there?

As for current Matias reliability: here's the thread I was remembering. Contains reports you can get several months good use out of Matias switches. But given the Bad Times were as recent as brand new keyboards bought less than 3 years ago, I'd be wary of buying the switches unless you enjoy the solder—desolder cha-cha. I sure don't, myself!

[Willy4876]

*Don't get me started on the rollover and the inherent limits in accursed ADB. And why the 3 lock lights when Macs never did support Num Lock or Scroll Lock and still don't? I kinda like the case, and the caps have a nice profile—typing on them now—but together they're a bit too flimsy for my taste. Needs moar metal.

That's more or less true. Out of the box Macs didn't support scroll or numlock lights, but they are able to control them. I have a system extension on my old Macintosh SE that makes numlock act as a harddrive activity light.

Aye, these days. I got my own Alps for no more than that… many years ago.

I remember this topic of recent Matias switch reliability came up on DT in the last few months. People still had mixed reports about it. Matias keyboards in particular can come in a mix of good and baaaaaaaad switches, as I recall. And there's no obvious way to test the switches if you buy them individually. Couldn't they have changed the outer markings for us to stop folk from losing their minds?

Losing $50 on garbage switches isn't too much, I suppose. It's the effort you went through: installing them, discovering the cccchattttterr and subsequently pulling the fuckers back out again. one by one as they succumb. If you've the patience for a rolling repair project, I suppose it's worth your personally discounted while! Shame though, you'd get none of this upgrading a dirty vintage MX board with modern switches.

I've got the UK ISO one

Ooh: icon mods! Jealous.

I picked up some Matias click switches about a year ago to rebuild an old Acer board that I got cheap and so far no issues at all with registering or chattering. I have, however, noticed that they are a bit inconsistent in terms of key feel. Some keys bind a bit while others are perfectly fine. Also, I have noticed that you can feel the slider clearing the contacts a lot more with Matias than with complicated Alps. I did try linearizing a couple of these switches and loose they feel really nice that way. I have not gotten around to putting any of the linearized ones into a board yet though, so take that with a grain of salt.

[Thorogrimm]

I picked up some Matias click switches about a year ago to rebuild an old Acer board that I got cheap and so far no issues at all with registering or chattering. I have, however, noticed that they are a bit inconsistent in terms of key feel. Some keys bind a bit while others are perfectly fine. Also, I have noticed that you can feel the slider clearing the contacts a lot more with Matias than with complicated Alps. I did try linearizing a couple of these switches and loose they feel really nice that way. I have not gotten around to putting any of the linearized ones into a board yet though, so take that with a grain of salt.

Reckon it would be worth grabbing some linear Matias switches? I heard they're pretty smooth, but the weighting appears to be a bit light (35g) so I might upgrade them with some heavier springs

[shallot]

Honestly, Matias switches can be had for so cheap that you can muscle out any theoretical quality issues with sheer volume.

Acting like vintage Alps don't ever chatter or not work as well is a bit rich.

[Muirium]

Sure a great big bag of Matias switches will do. And a dozen different nights with the soldering iron, swapping them out when the next one goes wrong. You are your own QC is the problem. And I gather the pay’s not very good!

As for vintage Alps: I find they either arrive in shite condition or they hold up well. My only regular Alps board is my ‘lil blue Alps 64: I’ve been running it for many years now and so far no issues with any of its switches. Feels a bit better than Matias’ simplified Alps clones too. I’d recommend it to anyone with a time machine.

[Hak Foo]

Yeah, sadly the problems I had with Matias switches dragged me back to MX-alike.

I bought a couple of PCBs for my dream ALPS project. One I stupidly decided to make with the Hua-Jie switches, which have a useful life roughly equivalent to a fresh blancmange in Phoenix in July. Most of the click leaves were shot after a few months. The next one I did with Matias switches. Backspace stuck closed. I desoldered it and did some nasty damage to the PCB. I tried to jumper-wire fix it, and it seemed like I had bypassed backslash in some way and it would no longer trigger. Code wasn't going to write itself (I'm still working on that macro), so I dragged out my old GH-122 with Box Navies for a while and set it aside.

I came to the conclusion I am downright rubbish at desoldering (although I suspect modern high-quality PCBs with plated vias may be the problem, since I can pull apart vintage stereo gear with single-layer PCBs just fine) so what I should do is design my own PCB, so the next time something goes wrong, I have, or can order, a spare board and start from scratch. And if I'm going to do that, I may as well go with the MX form-factor, as it seems likely when someone figures out how to seal in the flavours of original Blue Alps/Beamspring/resistive BS into a convenient 65-cent-each-in-quantities-of-100 individual switch module, it's probably going to have that footprint.

That's why I have four spare Overton130 PCBs sitting under my bed waiting for the next meme switch.

[Go-Kart]

To remedy this, I tested two of my only lubes which I had on hand: silicone grease and WD40 silicone spray (sprayed in a small dish). Both were applied thinly on two separate switches with a cue tip. No major improvements there and the scratchiness still prevailed.

I'm now stuck between deciding if I should:
A. Get some better lube (like TriboSys 3203) and try it on all the switches. Maybe also decrease the angle of the tactile leaf.
B. Linearise the switches, maybe lube them and get stiffer springs.
C. Desolder the switches, buy some Matias switches and solder them on.
D. Ditch the project and not spend any more money on a shit feeling keyboard

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Oh. Also. The number 6 key's stem broke off when removing the keycaps--it seems the previous owner had broken it somehow and tried to superglue it back on. So if anyone has any spare num row 6 keycaps for an AEKII to spare, please DM me.

I've had good experiences with Krytox 105 with Black Alps and Linearised Black Alps. The switches weren't too bad to begin but I stripped them down and gave them the old brush 'n hoover. A very light and meticulous application of 105 saw them become some of my favourite switches. I have a Focus with Pine Whites to do next now that my Alps switch opener tool has arrived. Though, sometimes, when switches needed it, a desolder and full deep clean is necessary. I have an NTC that came with Type 02 Alps Clones. They weren't too bad but they were so challenging to reassemble, it was truly easier to remove them from the board entirely to clean them.

[Thorogrimm]

I've had good experiences with Krytox 105 with Black Alps and Linearised Black Alps. The switches weren't too bad to begin but I stripped them down and gave them the old brush 'n hoover. A very light and meticulous application of 105 saw them become some of my favourite switches. I have a Focus with Pine Whites to do next now that my Alps switch opener tool has arrived. Though, sometimes, when switches needed it, a desolder and full deep clean is necessary. I have an NTC that came with Type 02 Alps Clones. They weren't too bad but they were so challenging to reassemble, it was truly easier to remove them from the board entirely to clean them.

What I ended up doing was just investing multiple hours into cleaning the switches, restoring the tactile leaves to a less extreme angle and greasing the sliders up with silicone grease. But they're still pretty scratchy so I'm not very optimistic about doing anything further with this board. I might try and convert it, but I don't think I'd enjoy using it.

So I'm kinda planning on selling it now

[PlacaFromHell]

What I ended up doing was just investing multiple hours into cleaning the switches, restoring the tactile leaves to a less extreme angle and greasing the sliders up with silicone grease. But they're still pretty scratchy so I'm not very optimistic about doing anything further with this board. I might try and convert it, but I don't think I'd enjoy using it.

So I'm kinda planning on selling it now

Let me suggest one last thing. Right now I'm using an AEK with swapped early clicky whites. My washing process was pretty much mechanical, using plain water and force to remove any dirt and preserve the smooth surface of the sliders. The point is, after all that process, the switches didn't feel as great as I expected, but I daily drived the AEK for a long time anyways because yes. Wanna know a dirty secret about Alps? The typing itself is what might fix your switches, the rubbing motion of the parts as you type will eventually polish the surfaces that feel rough. I know this because I started to feel the difference, and I can clearly tell the difference between a very used switch like W for example and a not very used one, like F6 which is still rough. That said, DO NOT type on a dirty Alps, you will get the exact opposite effect.

[Thorogrimm]

Let me suggest one last thing. Right now I'm using an AEK with swapped early clicky whites. My washing process was pretty much mechanical, using plain water and force to remove any dirt and preserve the smooth surface of the sliders. The point is, after all that process, the switches didn't feel as great as I expected, but I daily drived the AEK for a long time anyways because yes. Wanna know a dirty secret about Alps? The typing itself is what might fix your switches, the rubbing motion of the parts as you type will eventually polish the surfaces that feel rough. I know this because I started to feel the difference, and I can clearly tell the difference between a very used switch like W for example and a not very used one, like F6 which is still rough. That said, DO NOT type on a dirty Alps, you will get the exact opposite effect.

Well they're quite clean at this point as I was pretty thorough to vacuum and brush any potential debris whilst reassembling each switch, so I supposed I could give it a chance for a week or so.