This setup is to fix my botched solder job on my Model 01.
When we started working from home, it became obvious that my keyboard’s clicking was too obtrusive to my wife. She works 3 feet behind me. I ordered more online.
Replacing the left half went fine. I removed the existing solder easy enough. But I got cocky and turned up the heat for the right side.
The temperature melted the metal that connects to key caps. The result was that one of the rows of keys was unresponsive. That’s when I turned it over and looked at the places where the solder job was seemed off.
So now these little guys are going to replace the little metal sleeves.
They are M1.5*2.5 and they are too big. Thats why I brought the dremel
I’m going to widen the hole on the PCB by hand.
The prongs on the keycaps don’t fit in the replacement sleeves. so I am widening them with the Dremel.
I’ve watch a youtube video and I feel confident I can do a trace repair.
testing the key caps manually. Everything appears to be working! I spent about $100 on all this soldering gear. For me, it was worth it.
The kickstarter attitude of this company (“you are going to get a screwdriver”) motivated me to solve my own problem. This was my version of “covid bread” and I am really satisfied right now.
I combined overconfidence, inexperience (too much solder iron heat), a lack of proper tools, and birthday whiskey. The PCB now reminds me of the Millennium Falcon – aint much to look at, but she has it where it counts .
If I couldn’t resuscitate her, I might be devastated right now. That was the risk I was willing to take when getting wrist pains from my spare keyboard. Now, I own all the proper soldering tools and I have a working keyboard to show for it. The best part is that I enjoy using the Model 01 even more!
I’m glad you enjoyed the story. It was a labor of love.
Hey, it seems I did a similar mistake. After replacing the “E” and “A” switches just fine, I replaced the “R” and “T” as they were failing, but now the whole left hand second row is down.
The LEDs still all work, except for the on-press LED, which interestingly only works for the T key even though it does not type, this is better illustrated with a video:
Somehow I am not even able to upload images, so here a link to an image of the pulled out caps:
Friends said it smelled like burnt wire, but I can’t really see anything wrong at the solder spots, though I have to admit I am very new to all this:
