I left off the keyboard updates with my new blue metallic keycaps on my TMR switches. I have my extra keypad along with my ten keyless (TKL) main board and they both work really well. They both sound really well. I didn't get a good response from Awekeys regarding the F and J keys, but that's fine. it works out with just a little bit of light.
The problem came with the spacebar. I think I first noticed the sound was inconsistent on it. Then I noticed it wasn't quite typing right. It would occasionally double hit and occasionally just miss. I didn't give it TOO much thought as I was honestly enjoying the keyboard... but then I saw it. The spacebar wasn't sitting straight. It was leaning a little down on the right side.
My first thought was the spring. I'd heard people complain about the metal keycaps before, saying that they are so heavy that they stress the springs out. I hadn't noticed that on any of my keys, but that must be what's happening with the spacebar. As I'd already read about it, I just went to the 'fix it' stage. I looked for springs.
The first set of springs I bought taught me that keyboard springs are a specific size as the ones I got were vastly too small. Too small to even fit around the switch stem. Instead of just buying some different springs on Amazon, I went to a keyboard specific website and started to learn about keyboard springs. First, I learned that the normal 'weight' (strength) of a keyboard spring is in the range of 50 to 60 grams. The more grams, the harder it is to push down. There are a lot of other factors in the springs, but that's what I was looking at as I wanted it to 'push' up on the heavy metal keycap.
Then I got the curve. Springs are metal. They're magnetically reactive. I have switches that read magnetic resistance and would be affected by a change in magnetic reactivity. FUCK.
Now I not only need to find heavier springs, I need to find heavier springs specifically for magnetic keyboards. Do they make such things? Yes. Are they common? NO THEY ARE NOT! It's difficult to even find replacement springs for magnetic switches, let alone heavy weighed magnetic switch springs.
That's when I finally looked at Ali Express. Yes, I was buying springs from China. Their system works though as a box of $5 springs still got shipped here for $10. If I bought the same box from some North American based company it would have cost the same in shipping. The only difference is it would have taken seven to ten days instead of a month.
Ali Express does have a 'fast shipping' guarantee, we just disagree on the definition of 'fast'. If the package is not delivered within three weeks, you get a $1 coupon. If it's not delivered within a month, you get a refund. Like Amazon or any other company, they give you a tracking number, but it's from some Chinese logistics company so tracking is... weird.
I spend a couple weeks watching it leave the facility, get moved around by truck, get to the airport (I figured it would have been on a boat!), go through customs, get to LaGuardia Airport and then... nothing. My package was handed off from one company to another in Queens New York, but the other company doesn't acknowledge receiving it. So it just sat there in limbo for another couple weeks.
On day 31, I filed a request for a refund as it hadn't been delivered. I got it and since it was issued as a credit from Ali Express, I ordered another Transformer. Then the next day, just before I was going to sit down and look again for magnetic switch springs, my springs from China were delivered.
I was happy to get them so I pulled out all my keyboard tools, pulled the big heavy metal keycap, pulled the switch, opened the switch, pulled the spring out, and replaced it with a 100g spring made for a magnetic spring. It was SIGNIFICANTLY heavier but thankfully with my TMR switches, I was able to reprogram the inflection point of the switch so that my same typing force still activated the key even though I was barley pressing it down.
It worked! And it failed spectacularly as the keycap still leaned heavily to the right.
If you know about keyboards and switches and caps and such, you probably already guessed what the problem was. It was never the springs. It was the stabilizer. The two little parts that hold either edge of a longer key with a wire between them. it literally just makes is so that if you press down on one side of a long key, it pulls down the other side, making any touch to the keycap a press of the switch. My stabilizer was completely blown. No spring action to it whatsoever. You could press the end down and nothing happened to the other side. It didn't even recoil.
I checked my other keys that use stabilizers (shift, enter, backspace...) and ALL of the stabilizers were blown. And here's where 'quality' comes in to bite me in the ass. On a cheaper keyboard you could pull the stabilizer from the top. Just pull it similar to how you pull the switch. I could likely buy replacement stabilizers and move on from there. But my keyboard is special. It not only has thick foam covering all the stabilizer spaces, it has a solid foam layer covering the PCB. I can pull the top foam layer out (it's a pain in the ass, but possible) but not the bottom layer. There are cutouts for the switches themselves, just not the stabilizers. Oh sure, I can pull the ends of the stabilizers from the PCB but not the spring/wire that connects the two ends. Not without ripping the foam.
If I want to do it right, I need to use various tiny screw heads and drivers to remove the metal top plate from the metal bottom plate and slip the entire foam layer out. It's a pain in the ass, and I've even read that it's bad on this keyboard in particular.
You know what? Fuck it. I'll just get another keyboard. This was is nice, but I can certainly find another one. Right? One that's 2.4Ghz wireless? Ten Keyless? TMR? Hot swappable with both TMR and Mechanical switches? With per key RGB lighting?
No. No, I can't find that. I can find several keyboards in the 60, 65, and 70% sizes, but not the TKL or 80% size. To go smaller than TKL means either losing the F row keys or losing some of the keys above the arrow keys (print screen, scroll lock, pause...). Neither of which are acceptable to me.
Although, now that It think about it... I COULD use those extra switches on my numberpad. Right now I have a row of five extra keys that I don't really use (I use the top four as media keys). I could move Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause, Insert, Home and such over there.
Hmm... now I have more to think about.
Anywho... the keyboard problem isn't done. I'm sure I'll have another update (in an update post or another separate keyboard post) with my eventual solution and then another post months later with how well or unwell it worked.
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