I found that it was quite easy to swap the parts around, but then found that the actuation force didn't seem to be enough for me when I tested the switch between my fingers. I was a bit unhappy with the results before I realised that I could double-up on the springs to get a stiffer response (at the cost of increasing the compressed length). I first tried the blue and the grey springs together, but it didn't work well because the blue springs had more wraps than the grey ones. Obviously, I tried two grey springs and it worked decently well (I think I had to play with it a bit), besides that it was quite stiff (160cN).
I then ran into another problem, I had only ordered 25 switches of each type and I was needing to modify 16 switches total; I was about to get back onto Allied Electronics's site before I realised I could drop 5 switches total. Originally I had planned to modify the super keys (aka Windows key), but since both keyboards have a way to disable the keys, it was an easy way to drop the switch count. I also decided against modifying the right click menu key on the Logitech G710+ keyboard, since the button that disables the super keys also disables that key as well (obviously not the same case for the Cherry keyboard). I then put together the ghetto super green switches together (11 of them total) and set them aside until I was actually able to work on it.
I began working on switching the switches this morning, opening up the G710+ first, as I remembered having difficulty opening it when I was checking it out a couple months after I first bought it. Fortunately, it disassembled quite easily, and I was able to remove the cable for the volume roller, since it's something I never use. The entire time from Friday, I was a bit worried about de-soldering the switches, but remembered that the LED is separate and the tough part would be the switch itself.
At first, I tried to heat up both switch legs simultaneously and also hold onto the plate retention latches to pull the switch away from the plate - needless to say it was a bad idea and didn't work at all. I then decided to try the de-soldering braid on it, and it worked very well to my surprise; I replaced one switch at a time for two switches before doing a step at a time for the remaining three.
The Cherry keyboard was much easier to disassemble, since the keyboard has a detachable cord. It also uses (zener) diodes, but since I was just using the de-soldering braid, it didn't slow me down any. The only trouble I ran into when making the modifications was that the top housing piece of the switches with the LED (the three locks) has a sort of "extension" (presumably to help guide the legs of the LED), and it wasn't compatible with the switch with the diode in it - this was quickly remedied by pulling out the switches with the LED (which hadn't been soldered in at the time) and removing the top housing piece to find the correct one (luckily on the first try).
Since the MX switches I ordered were for PCB mounting (and not plate mounting), the bottom of the housing has a couple extra pegs, which I could have cut off, but I went for just putting the spring and stem into the switch I pulled from the keyboards.
It is
Before I begin showing pictures, I'll go into a bit of depth about why I disabled each key.
- Caps Lock: I disable this because I very rarely use it. When I used to use Logitech's Illuminated Keyboard (K740, Y-UY95), Set Point allowed me to disable the Caps Lock key, which was very nice, but when I got the 710+, I wasn't able to do this with Set Point or the Gaming Software).
- Scroll Lock: I don't think I hit this by accident very often, but it is next to the print screen key, which I use on occasion. It's also a key that's hardly used any more, so why not?
- Num Lock: I normally keep it on, as I do use the 10-key for numeric entries, but sometimes when I try to hit slash (/), I'll accidentally hit num lock instead and screw up whatever I was trying to enter. The other reason is that it's the auto-run hotkey in Mabinogi and Mabinogi is programmed with the caps/num lock keys as toggles ("off" when Mabinogi's started, "on" when it is pressed outside of the chat box) instead of just reading the state of the keys (which would have been much smarter in my opinion).
- Insert: I strongly dislike this key when I'm... Rather I should say that overstrike text entry is highly annoying when trying to type things up, especially when it goes unnoticed for a while. That said, it's accidentally hit when I'm trying to use the delete key that's underneath it
- Right Shift: When I learned to type, I never made a habit of using the right shift key for the three left pinky keys (Q, A, and Z) and instead adapted by rotating my hand at the wrist so that my ring finger would hit those three keys while my pinky holds down the left shift.
- Right Click Menu: I'm not sure what this key's supposed to be called, but it's (usually) the one to the left of the right control key. I haven't hit this on accident from what I remember, but it's a key that I've only used a few times in my life, so might as well just modify it anyway.
Cherry MX Blue and Cherry MX Grey, comparison of the plate-mounted bottom housing and PCB-mounted bottom housings, comparison of the brown stem and spring with the blue stem and doubled grey springs.
Doubled spring sitting in the housing, blue stem sitting on the spring, completed plate-mounted ghetto super green.
Fully mounted and soldered.
One other modification I did before this was get some o-rings to change the travel distance of the keycaps, putting two of them on each key (for most of them) so that it would stop the key from travelling further than the necessary actuation distance. Unfortunately, I had to remove one of the rings from certain keys because either I don't use enough force to press the key down for those specific keys, or the total ring thickness is just slightly more than the actuation distance.
If you want to modify your mechanical keyboard, go for it (as long as you have a puck of 1mm de-soldering braid) because it's actually a lot easier than it seems.
I redid the springs, read about it in this post.
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