Cleaning & lubricating my AT102
Posted: 10 Jun 2017, 14:30
Recently I acquired an AT102, having become curious if original Alps felt like the switches in my Matias Tactile Pro. It looked clean enough, but there was a substantial amount of friction when I typed on the board. So, armed with knowledge acquired by watching Chyrosran22's video on restoring Alps switches, I decided to carry out a bit of DIY.
Pulling off the first six keycaps revealed some dirt.... You may notice, by the way, that the lock lights were still covered by the original protective plastic.
....so I proceeded to pull off the rest, then hoovered the entire board.
Interestingly, this already improved the feel of some of the keypresses, indicating that dirt inside the switches was at least partly to blame for the problem. So I took out the hoover again, this time making sure that I held the hose above every individual switch before I moved to the next section.
Using the toothpick method, I then removed the housings of the key switches. I generally needed to use only two, but some of those switches were very stubborn....
Unfortunately, I didn't take any photographs for the next stage. The insides of the switches looked clean; perhaps I'd already hoovered away most of the dirt. As the key action was still far from perfect, though, I decided to lube the switches.
I sprayed the plungers and the insides of the housings with a silicone lubricant (the Valvoline Silikon Spray, to be precise), as I figured that using a spray would ensure that the lubricant would spread evenly. It did, indeed, work as intended - although I had to shake the plungers around a little in order to make sure that both sides would receive some of the grease.
After I'd lubed the plungers and housings, I put the switches back together using gloves and a pair of forceps in order to prevent my skin from being covered in silicon grease. Finally, I put the keycaps back on, which I'd cleaned using denture tabs.
And voilà, the final result. It may not be all that much to look at, but the typing experience is very pleasant. I now prefer this board to my Matias Tactile Pro. Buckling springs remain my favourite switch, but I imagine I will be typing on this board quite a lot, as my other half hates the racket the IBM keyboards make!
Pulling off the first six keycaps revealed some dirt.... You may notice, by the way, that the lock lights were still covered by the original protective plastic.
....so I proceeded to pull off the rest, then hoovered the entire board.
Interestingly, this already improved the feel of some of the keypresses, indicating that dirt inside the switches was at least partly to blame for the problem. So I took out the hoover again, this time making sure that I held the hose above every individual switch before I moved to the next section.
Using the toothpick method, I then removed the housings of the key switches. I generally needed to use only two, but some of those switches were very stubborn....
Unfortunately, I didn't take any photographs for the next stage. The insides of the switches looked clean; perhaps I'd already hoovered away most of the dirt. As the key action was still far from perfect, though, I decided to lube the switches.
I sprayed the plungers and the insides of the housings with a silicone lubricant (the Valvoline Silikon Spray, to be precise), as I figured that using a spray would ensure that the lubricant would spread evenly. It did, indeed, work as intended - although I had to shake the plungers around a little in order to make sure that both sides would receive some of the grease.
After I'd lubed the plungers and housings, I put the switches back together using gloves and a pair of forceps in order to prevent my skin from being covered in silicon grease. Finally, I put the keycaps back on, which I'd cleaned using denture tabs.
And voilà, the final result. It may not be all that much to look at, but the typing experience is very pleasant. I now prefer this board to my Matias Tactile Pro. Buckling springs remain my favourite switch, but I imagine I will be typing on this board quite a lot, as my other half hates the racket the IBM keyboards make!