How to fix and repair Alps SKCC keyboards
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 12 ก.ย. 2023
- On today's video, I'm fixing a computer keyboard that uses Alps SKCC switches. While repairing the Apple II+ clone computer this goes to, I determined that several key keys were not working. This board shows obvious signs of corrosion, so let's dig into and find out why it's not working.
The techniques here apply to any Alps SKCC board.
Part 0: • 0068 This computer is ... (SMMC video featuring this computer)
Part 1: • Apple II+ clone repair...
Part 2: • Apple II+ clone repair...
Part 3: • Apple II+ clone repair...
Part 3b: This part
-- Video Links
Music: Raindropsies_2SID by Wojciech Radziejewski (Shogoon)
csdb.dk/sid/?id=54728
What is Alps SKCC keyboard?
deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKC...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
Adrian's Digital Basement (Main Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
I ran into Adrian at a Qdoba last weekend. He is such a nice person, very approachable and willing to answer my question. He may not remember me but I’m sure he remembers my hand. Nice to meet you sir. Keep up the great content.
Do we even want to know why he remembers your hand? 😄
@@nickwallette6201 burned it at work night before
I love how you use parts from a non-working item to fix another broken item. That's the second R of Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. LOVE IT.
I do find it weird how the 0 in the Numpad is different than the 0 in the number row.
Eh, I think it's more the third R. "Reuse" is more about reusing stuff wholesale. Parts salvaging is a form of recycling.
@@sanityormadness It's still consider reusing as it is being used as it was originally designed and intended and not being changed for another application. Recycling is breaking down something to be used as something different.
A few months ago I heard it rephrased as being FIVE Rs, including (iirc) Refuse (as in bring a cloth bag so that you can refuse a plastic bag) and Repair. This case is doing a Repair with Reused parts. Definitely Repair is as important as the three Rs that everyone knows.
@@8bitwiz_ excellent point! Kinda reminds me of how the "5 stages" of grief is now actually 8 (IIRC) stages, and the literature now discusses more about how people often feel more than one "stage" at once so it's not meant to imply some linear journey.
I cringed when you slipped with that X-Acto knife. Nice to see how these come apart - good info!
I had my other hand below the trajectory of the knife luckily -- was hard to tell in the video :-)
UGH! The "S" key is upside down.
Haha
He should keep it like that 😂
@@volvo09No he shouldn't.
I'm like "people were all screaming at the computer 'the S is upside down!'"
Well I want him to put them All in upside down. For the heck of it.
🤣
That power LED is a really good boy. A happy happy boy.
Yes very happy to be getting some attention finally!!
I did this last year with a TRS=80 Model 1 that had 4 dead keys. Was naysayed by the internets that the Alps were essentially unfixable, but I tried anyway by buying some a set of 5 Mac switches. After swapping out the stems (which were the same shape but different lengths than the mac). Finally after washing and 303ing all the keycaps, followed spraying QD electronic cleaner into the rest of the keys, everything works and looks great now :)
Definately not unfixable, and many times with no parts at all! See my comment above - take it apart and just bend the "fork" out on the switch plate.
A pro tip for if you have a non working switch but everything looks ok: You can fix them with NO spare parts at all. Take the spring plate "fork" and bend it out toward the center "nub" until it's about in line with it. It will fix these switches 100% every time and is reliable. Did my Apple ][ + 4 years ago like this and all still work to this day.
Obviously all Adrians switches were complete goners, but in case all your parts look good, this always works. If it doesnt, take it apart again and bend it a little more out. Of course it goes without saying clean the contacts while apart.
Thanks for all the great videos! Love both your channels! I like thin guitar picks for opening switches like that. You can get them in different thicknesses and they are good for prying things open when they are plastic and you want to make it less likely to break or scratch them. Like a spudger tool but you can get a whole bunch of guitar picks in many different stiffness so you have a variety for any situation.
Brilliant job, Adrian.
17:21 the "S" key cap is upside down.
Great content, thankx for sharing with us. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
Such a tease not showing the testing of the keyboard at the end!!! LOL. Looking forward to you trying out a Coleco Adam keyboard some day!
Well that was educational! First off, seeing that the stems are different lengths, since the main problem I see with those keyboards is stems breaking off of keys in the corner, where they can get bumped more. But I will admit to having a moment of temptation after seeing the other set of PCB holes, that if they fit Cherry switches which fit the same key caps, of just replacing them all with modern switches.
And instead of the x-acto blade, I'd try an iSesamo as a thin and strong but not razor-sharp piece of metal.
"The keyboard experts". I feel called out
I wouldn't be surprised if other commenters have said this already, but it would be nice if there could be a 3D model made of these. They're pretty fine parts so you'd probably need a resin printer but, small resin printers are super cheap and these are pretty small parts.
Then you could transplant a working click leaf into a new housing for times where the switch casing is damaged. Plus replace broken stems, or source stems of different lengths if you have no donor boards.
I do love me an ALPS switch.
I lowkey wish they'd won the defacto-standardisation/supremacy war against Cherry. It's so interesting because they were basically the default switch provider for so many Asian boards, just as Cherry were for German/European boards. Then they just... faded away....
Spudgers are my go to tools for disassembling Alps switches
Genius as usual!
keyboard person here, that looks like a happy board!
yup, my trs 80 model 3 and TI99/4a have the alps and my apple IIE enhanced has Mitsumi, they all feel nice.
To me, "Restoration" is bringing something back to working status, sure it could look like it was dragged off the Titanic, but if it worked perfectly fine, then that's what I want, function over form, it's ony after that I may clean things up and make them look nice again, but, I'm not that bothered about everything looking like factory-fresh when I actually want to use it and thus make it look used again... :)
you have the S on upside down ,adrian,nice repair enjoyed the video
Actually the red material around the two pins of the switch body chips out easily and the switch plate pulls right out of the lower body.
You Teaser! - LOL 😆 Looking forward towards the rusty keyboard working like new.
Like Dave Jones said: Good enough for Australia (US)! Really no point to do a full restore, takes much more time and effort.
Man that wiggly LED was distracting.
Pretty sure ive seen kids wearing things like that at parties lol
The non-broken lower bases with glued-in switches can be salvaged, with a bit more work, maybe not worth it.
I've even saved ones with broken off pins (non-corroded) by soldering wires to the stubs, but that works best if used to build a scrappy keyboard, without a full PCB, like I did to replicate a Commodore-matrix style keyboard from junk parts.
just bought an Apple ][+...my first retro computer....i totally blame Adrian....TOTALLY...
now i have 25 hours of videos to rewatch before i try booting it
I wonder if you can 3d print new stems and the base case? Nice repair video! Was very glad to see you get rid of the Exacto knife for opening those switches... safety cringe from me.
Probably would work okay with a resin printer. A filament printer would likely require a fine nozzle and a lot of tuning and post-processing.
Yeah, you can technically print the stems with an FDM printer, but unless your fdm printer can do really fine printing (or you sand down a bit), the keys are a bit rougher than the real stems and you can notice the difference when typing. I did it once a long time ago and wasn't happy with the result. That said, I have a better 3d FDM 3d printer now and printed a new stem for my trs-80 model 4 that broke so i'm going to give it a shot as well to see how it feels. I do have an SLA printer but, yeah, anyone who has a resin printer knows what a pain it is to clean up after so you kinda want to batch all your print jobs together so you can have more efficient cleaning time.. haha. But yeah, as @Mueller3D said, that would really be the way to go.
As you are working on an unique keyboard control logic. Please show us how it works. Thank you.
Add to your miscellaneous tools
a metal thimble to avoid stabbing your fingertips while taking the switches apart works wonders on saving on bandaids
Hello! I'm repairing and old Apple IIe keyboard with long stem ALPS switches. Following your instructions I was able to repair and disassemble every switch with 100% success. I was pretty confident in the task until I met my match the Caps Lock Switch. One I opened it it was completely different and now... I can´t assemble it back on!! I've been trying different ways but there are some pieces (a little copper wire) that got me totally confused. Any idea of where can I find an image or video on how to assemble THAT specific key? Thanks a million in advance for your time and patience. Greetings, from Argentina!
Notification Squad! :D
Those are the same key caps used in the NABU keyboard.
Hi Adrian!
Did you insulate those bodge wires (or are they enamel coated?) One or two were very close to contacting soldered parts.
Black switchplates of Alps SKCC is same as long black/gray/white switchplates of first generation Alps SKCM/SKCL switches
do you soak that in deoxit or wd40? ohh nevermind, you just mentioned rust converter...
what did adrian say when a component lost connection? that a lot oh-my.
I'm not sure it was a good idea to spread this Apple ][ clone series over two channels, but I'm even more critical of the way this video was basically taken out of the middle of episode 3. Not to have a go at you, but I just had to say that.
17:08: The S key is upside down. Whoopsie.
The rust needs sanding, cleaning, prime, and paint.
Back in 80s I was given an Apple ][ system (computer, monitor, drives & printer) that had been stolen & dumped in a river for several weeks, it was full of tiny river snails I remember. I got everything working again but it was NEVER reliable, just had problem after problem with it …….
I will second that ... whooooooooooooah.
The key stems look like a perfect application for 3d printing….
What a downer that he didn't show if it worked or not. Like a movie with a bad ending.
It's called a "cliffhanger". Tune in Saturday for the thrilling conclusion!
Hi Adrian
Rust never sleeps 😝
Making a application specific blade is trivial, dull and blunt the edges with sand paper, concrete or even a bowling trophy.
Suspiciously specific…
You put the S in backwards !
APLLE 😋
Gotta avoid any copyright issues! LOL!!
APL_L_E ][? What kind of newfangled computer is that? 🤭
Hahaha -- gotta avoid copyright! ;-)
Tip. Low melt solder can make part removal much easier. Here's a good demonstration on an Atari 800XL th-cam.com/video/A24YSrwpFvU/w-d-xo.html Go to 12:10 for the part I'm tallking about however the whole video is real interesting. This is NorthridgeFix channel. He's real good for teaching electronics repair.
Solder sucker go brrr...
I can't be the only one noticing the upside down "S" key...
Honestly, I would have desolderer everything, and properly treat the metal shield. And Rust is cancer, it will still continue even if its out of a damp environment you literally need to sand that to bare metal.... then use a rust inhibitor and repaint, just putting a rust inhibitor on existing rust is only a temporary solution.
I think if I was you, I'd remove ALL the switches, then remove the plate, clean and repair, then reassemble.
Mmhmmm!!! :-)
I think you'd like to have the time to do that …
🤪
Oh my god bro this is driving my ocd nuts.... ship the keyboard to me, i'll desolder all of the switches and remove the metal plate, lol
Wash your hands Adrian! :)
Made me cringe everytime you used that blade to get the housing apart
Not a huge deal, but your thumbnail says "APLLE".
Heh yeah I know, it was supposed to be a bit of a joke with the illegal nature of the clone :-)
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Ahh.
See, I hadn't watched the video quite yet, and you probably mentioned that in the vid.
The age-old mistake of commenting too early. lol
Adrian I volunteer to intern for you and desolder those keys...o wait i live 1800 miles away😦 73
well.....there is United Parcel Smashers
WHY! You already did the the work and removed a 4th of the switches. Just do the extra work and pull the whole frame and restore it.
This video is so frustrating to watch.