deskthority

Hello Deskthority!

I recently bought a barely-used Elite (rebranded Chicony) KB-5181 keyboard with the SMK Monterey Blue switches. This is the first mechanical keyboard I have owned and probably the first I can remember typing on since childhood! So far I like it way more than the rubber domes I'm used to or the or the Fujitsu Peerless I found at work. I have been reading a bit about this board and this post on GH caught my eye:

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=60329.0

I like the texture on the key caps but they do seem cheap, but the case is not good. It sounds hollow and it creaks if I apply any pressure to it. Which brings me to my questions.

First, are there any "undesirable" vintage keyboards with decent Alps-mount key caps? It seems like there are no custom Alps-mounts aside from one group buy on Pimp My Keyboard, so I want to keep an eye out for something I can cannibalize without feeling bad for ruining. I've been searching local thrift stores but so far no joy.

Second, jacobolus mentioned in the post that, "If you have any plate-mounted Cherry MX keyboard, you could put SMK switches into it and hand wire them." By this, does it mean that the entire Chicony board needs to be put into a Cherry MX case, or that the SMK switches can be soldered in place of the Cherry switches? If the former is true, then are there any switches the SMK can be mounted in place of? I have read elsewhere that they cannot be swapped for authentic Alps.

Apologies if these are n00b questions, I was just looking for clarification on these points.

I spent about a month typing on a KB-5181, and enjoyed it quite a bit. First, I took the case off and threw it away. I just set the bare plate + pcb on top of a wooden plank. Instant improvement. Next, I replaced all the keycaps smaller than 2u with ones from an Apple Extended Keyboard II. These are nice PBT dyesubs, meaning they tend not to shine or yellow, but there were a gajillion of them made, so poor condition ones (e.g. very dirty, yellowed case and spacebar, scratchy switches, broken electronics, etc., but you don’t care about any of it because you’re just going to yank the keycaps off and dump them in a detergent bath) can be found for $20–40 including shipping on US ebay (not sure in other parts of the world). The F keys all mount sideways (on the AEK II the F row switches are sideways), but I didn’t find that to be too big a problem in practice.

My bare board with mismatched keycaps wasn’t especially pretty, but it was really great to type on. Might not be an ideal long-term solution though.

Second, jacobolus mentioned in the post that, "If you have any plate-mounted Cherry MX keyboard, you could put SMK switches into it and hand wire them." By this, does it mean that the entire Chicony board needs to be put into a Cherry MX case, or that the SMK switches can be soldered in place of the Cherry switches?

The idea is, SMK switches and MX switches clip into the same size plate holes. So if you buy e.g. a modern “gamer” board with plate-mounted Cherry/Kaihua/Greetech/whatever switches, then you can desolder everything, remove the switches and the PCB, snap in the SMK switches (just set the PCB aside, sell it, trash it, whatever) and then hand wire them to a diode matrix and use a Teensy running tmk_keyboard firmware or whatever.

See http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/brow ... t6050.html and http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/how- ... t7177.html

There are lots of undesirable vintage keyboards with Alps-mount keycaps, but there is a caveat: stabilisers for the larger keys (2 units or wider).
I have seen maybe four different variants of Alps-like sliders over rubber dome. Then there are keyboards with not entirely undesirable, but less desirable mechanical switches. Some keyboards with Acer switches have nice dye-sublimated PBT keycaps. There are lots of Dell AT101/Dell AT101W with black Alps.
However... there are several variants of stabilisers out there and you need to make sure that the plate that the switches are mounted in and the keycaps are compatible with the same type of stabilisers.
There are two general types for Alps-switches: Alps stabilisers (Alps-made, Dell and Apple keyboards etc.) and the stabilisers in e.g. Chicony which are very similar to Costar-style stabilisers but not exact. The Chicony keycaps has the same cruciform mounts for the stabiliser inserts as Cherry MX but Alps mount for the switch.. The Acer's seem to be their own type and the ones for the rubber dome keyboards vary even more, but you can sometimes find them for very cheap.

"Hand-wire" means that there is no PCB. You would mount the switches only to a plate, then solder diode-legs and wire between the pins directly and then solder those wires to a controller (often a Teensy) that you must load firmware onto. People in the keyboarding community have made different types of firmware that can auto-configure itself or be configured with a simple text file so you won't have to do any actual programming if you don't want to.
A plate and case that were made for each other should work without a PCB. SMK switches are not pin-compatible with any other type of switches, unfortunately so you can't replace them into a board not made for them.

Transplanting the insides of the Chicony keyboard into another keyboard's case might woirk. First of all, the spacings between key groups need to be the same. Then it could be a bit of work, depending on how the case is inside. You will at least have to cut off some standoffs inside the case to make the electronics fit, and the steel plate that the switches are mounted on may have to be cut to make it fit inside the width of the case.
I once put Chicony 5182 innards inside the case from a Cherry G80-3000, but it took me a whole weekend and I was experienced with plastics and had the tools already. Even though the G80-3000 is also known to be a bit airy, it was a big improvement from the Chicony's original case.

I don't have time to read all of this right now, but monteray blues are not compatible for a transplant into another alps keyboard. I think your options would be to find a different case or modify one to work with the chicony inards. Or I'm sure it would be possible to make a custom case though I imagine super expensive. I agree the case sucks. It never bothered me enough to try to find another solution. I would be interested though if you do find one as I wouldn't mind an upgrade to the case on mine.

I think I found some Canon (Acer) 6311s that could be good key cap donors. Right not I don't really mind the key caps, but a solution for the case in the future would be nice. In the meantime I can live with the Chicony just fine until my other two mechanical keyboards arrive later this month. I'm waiting on a Poker II with MX Clears and a Monterey K110. I don't know what switches the K110 has but for $25 I figure I can't go wrong either way!

Unfortunately, I did manage to break one of the mounting tabs on one of the stabilizers underneath the big ass Enter key. It does not affect operation but it make it a PITA to put the Enter key back on.

Thanks for the advice, everyone!