deskthority

After the beautiful work of both hansichen and ipreferpie this may be a bit redundant, but I converted my 3277 today and wanted to share some shots. The keycaps are drying now, but I'll update with completion shots tomorrow.

xwhatsit's conversion guide can be found here: http://downloads.cornall.co/ibm-capsens ... spring.pdf

Update:
A couple of notes for anyone else doing the conversion.

1) When I first brought up the Capsense GUI, the state grid showed that all keys were pressed. Lowering the current threshold enough showed the skipped columns (five on the far left, one near the middle) as pressed, but no keystrokes would register. Lowering the threshold further showed all keys as released; again, no keystrokes would register.

I believe I had tightened the screws holding the PCB, rubber mat, and steel plate to the main body too much. I tried to tighten all screws only to the point where I felt resistance, but I guess I still went a bit tight here. I took the PCB out and reinstalled it, this time really holding back on the screws, just enough so they shouldn't work themselves back out, and everything worked fine from that point on.

2) I was advised against soaking the keycaps, but, as you can see, I did. I left them to dry for more than 12 hours, but still some of the stems had water in them. I ended up folding small strips of toilet paper into little stakes and poking them into the stems to soak up any water. Wouldn't want to cause the mounts to rust.

The following are from day one:



I don't know the relevance of the yellow barrels (?) vs white. If anyone knows, I'd love to find out!



Before shots. The case and caps were wiped down with a damp cloth. No other work had been done at this point.









I was thrilled to see what nice condition the 3277 was in when it arrived. The next two photos show the minor rust on the board.













The foam shown in the next three pictures may need to be replaced at some point. A corner had detached from the main body, and when I picked it up it felt like molasses-soaked bread that didn't spring back to shape when released.







The next two pictures show the original PCB.





And here's the emdude PCB.





The best advice I received was to wash the caps in cold water, no soap. But I was impatient, and switched to warm water with Dawn dish soap--the same as I use for dyesubs. If I detect any damage I'll update this and post a warning thread.





The caps are drying now.



Update:
The caps went back on this morning. I am typing on her now! Here are the shots from day 2.































Thanks to:

• cml for finding and posting the 3277's from the classifieds in Spain,
  Scottex for buying and re-distributing them,
  emdude for developing the PCBs,
  xwhatsit for developing the beam spring controller,
  orihalcon for running the PCB GB and supplying other beam spring parts,
  And everyone in the Telegram channel for their advice and information!

imgur album: https://imgur.com/a/2t5L1

Looking forward to more pictures. I wonder if any of the other Spanish 3277's have yellow barrel's? My 66 key has all whites barrels. Definitely a neat variation.

Beautiful board! I believe I sent out Capsense PCBs to about 15 people, so there should at least be a several of these floating around that remain un-photographed in the wild. I have yet to get around to fully refurbishing mine.

Definitely would suggest replacing the foam at some point as well, but that can be done later if you are excited to get to actually using it. Cleaning the old adhesive residue is one of my least favorite parts of doing the restore, but totally worth it in the long run. Varies a bit keyboard as far as how tough that job is for sure.

Looking forward to some updates on this

Almost done with mine

Thanks for the replies! The original post has been updated with the rest of the pictures.

@JP! I'm also curious to see if any other boards have yellow (maybe even other colors) barrels.

@orihalcon You're right--I'm just excited to actually use board at the moment, but I will have to replace the foam. After your encouragement I've mentally upgraded its priority.

Mine is done actually. I don't have it home at the moment, so pics will come later.

Glad to see these results!

Well, since you asked about beamsprings switch variations, here is my contribution:
I plan to make a thread purely about beamspring switch variations eventually

Never seen yellow stems before. Oddly enough, the black stems were found in a 3277 66 key (Not from Scottex's Batch) and they all were that color on that board. It was also odd in that there was no dust shield and the barrel plate was painted black as well, apparently from the factory? The wider slit stem came from that 3277 as well.

Interesting thing about the black stems is that they actually have different dimensions as you can see, so they came from a different mold as well.

The shorter non-angled straight stems are what Datastations and presumably other desk-type beamsprings use.

The yellow housing pictured came from a Datastation, but there were only two on the entire board like that interestingly enough.

Magnificent work!

Just one question: when reassembling everything together, did you consider swapping the Ñ and SALTO keycaps?

Appreciate the replies!

@orihalcon Thanks for posting your pictures. I'd love to know the story behind the black stems--why they are different dimensions, why they had no contamination shield, and why the plate was painted black. That's a lot of variation on one board. I'll be looking forward to when you post your thread on beamspring switch variations!

@depletedvespene I've thought about rearranging some of the keys. It would be nice if the 0 key were moved right by one, as pressing 0 now produces 9, but I hadn't thought of moving the Ñ key. That would make it match the standard Spanish layout, is that right?

Let's turn it into a rainbow!

nsmechkb wrote: @depletedvespene I've thought about rearranging some of the keys. It would be nice if the 0 key were moved right by one, as pressing 0 now produces 9, but I hadn't thought of moving the Ñ key. That would make it match the standard Spanish layout, is that right?

Yes. Every Spanish-language layout I've ever seen (both the main «Spanish (Spain)» and «Spanish (Latin America)» layouts, and other, minor ones) put the Ñ right next to the L key.