My new WASD Keyboard V3 has already died

[Inxie]

In what, half a month of use, my WASD Keyboard has already died. It acts like it's performing a factory reset every time it's powered on. Before it died it typed out a bunch of symbols, random letters and numbers, then a bunch of H's, and B's. Then since then it never returned. Also for half a month of use, I'm shocked the spacebar already is showing wear from my right thumb (the only thumb actually I use to hit the space bar).

Kind of ticked off right now but don't know what to do. I already waited a while to have it made, and now I'm going to be without it because of this? They put a silly anti-right to repair sticker over the screw hole so I can't even try and diagnose it myself (illegal but whatever). I have to go through their official RMA process after they already forgot an o-ring on the keyboard when I ordered it, I feel like there's no quality here. The plastics, the electronics, even installing ordered parts. What the heck?

I made a mistake and went back to my Model F XT for now, the only keyboard I have that actually just works it seems.

[Muirium]

I’d return it for a refund and stay WASD free. But then I’m an IBM spoiled snob so I’d never be happy with a WASD board, even if it behaved well and had arrived correctly.

Now you know why we loathe ABS spacebars here. They shine in no time. It’s not just you.

[Inxie]

I ended up voiding the warranty sticker carefully to not intentionally leave the "void" behind. And took it apart. In no way is this keyboard worth the price they claim. No way, bill of materials is more in the key switches than the board itself. It's not a good design.

But I do now know what caused my electrical issues. I do now remember waking up with my face on the keyboard. Apparently I fell asleep drunk at the computer because I learned my boss was laid off and so was 75% of my workforce, so of course I took a night for myself. I guess drool is conductive which makes sense.

It started booting up, but keys weren't "right". For example, Z would press also X, C wouldn't press at all, and V was hitting the comma.

Now after taking it apart and doing what I can to clean (since I can't get under the plate without desoldering a bunch of switches, it's now actually working again and I'm able to type on it once again.

But yea, their claim of their UV coating preventing a shine? No no, either the lotion I use on my skin is wearing off this UV coating (medically I need it), or they outright lied. The regular keys are fine. Spacebar though clearly lost the UV coating where my finger actually hits. the PBT keycaps on my Model F XT (that I am still using to type this message as I have yet to put it back together), has no scratches, no nothing no signs of wear, and it's older than I've been alive on this planet, but a keyboard half a month old shows signs of wear.

Also of interest note about WASD keyboards, I think they might be painted or some weird form of plastic? When cleaning it with a lysol wipe for sanitary reasons, the wipe has black on it, as if the plastic rubbed off onto the wipe. I don't think I've ever seen that before cleaning a keyboard. I'm well confused about this.

[Inxie]

Anyway, I took a video when it was doing the erratic behavior: https://streamable.com/44i2mt (Headphone warning, at the end of my video the alarm clock for work went off, as I am currently on a workers strike and honestly stayed up all night drinking heavily as I wonder if I have a job come Tuesday or not). I have never once seen a keyboard act quite like this before, and plugged straight into the onboard USB controller, not even through a hub, this is the USB controller in the southbridge itself, so I can't get any more direct than that on my platform.

I did void the warranty because I'm fully right-to-repair and warranty stickers be damned (and theirs are easy to remove and put back on without ever noticing), and found that the soldering job has no shine. Every soldered joint is hazy, and the DIP switches have half-filled vias. The heck? Who is actually making these for WASD? Because the logo's internally do not indicate that WASD is actually the manufacturer, and the internal construction honestly looks worse than a Redragon keyboard which DOES have shiny solder joints. I wish I was kidding, this looks like plumbing solder it's that dull. 25 dollar keyboard vs 180 dollars makes no sense when the build quality of the 25 dollar board is actually superior to the 180 dollar board.

But as far as WASD's support, they did get back to me about the coating issue on the space bar, and I think they might be right. In the video which I sent to them as well, my thumbnail does actually hit that area, and apparently is scrapping the coating away, it's not the fingers themselves which explains why the main keys are not showing signs of wear, only the space bar. Still a bit of a bummer though. I'll polish it and make it less noticeable or just remove the coating entirely since there's no legends on the space bar.

Honestly not impressed with the build quality when for over 100 dollars less you can expect the same build. I dislike premium brands at this point, including Unicomp, because even my Unicomp has already failed, and has so many keys that no longer click or register, and have to be smacked to get a response.

[inozenz]

Anyway,...

love your alarm clock xD

[Inxie]

Anyway,...

love your alarm clock xD

It's REALLY old. It's a woodgrain I think Panasonic, with VFD display. It's particular "sweeping" type sound is the only thing that actually works at waking me up. Also it's freakin loud.

[HV_Medic]

I'm really surprised that you're having issues with your WASD board, I have two and I've never had a problem and I've them both for about two years. Their tech support has been decent to me.

I am very surprised by the "warranty void" sticker, neither of mine came with such a sticker, in fact, I bought the ones that have aluminum cases and not only was their no sticker but they included an allen wrench with which to take the boards apart.

As to who makes the boards, I am almost certain that Costar does their manufacturing and they rebrand, don't remember where I heard that, but I remember reading that somewhere.

As for the keycaps, I bought the boards barebones and used my own, so I cannot judge, I don't think I've read a single positive review of their caps, so I did not even bother trying them out.

Since you already voided your warranty, it can't hurt to touch up the solder joints if you're equipped. Maybe you'll get a fix, maybe not...

Since the board is still talking to your computer, you could try flashing to the newest firmware and then doing a factory reset.

As for the build quality, it isn't the best, but it is far from the worst, plus they are one of the few manufacturers out there that still does a full size board, so if that is important, you don't have too many options.

Agreed on Unicomp, their boards from 15 years ago were much better, I haven't been impressed with anything I've gotten from them in the past 2-3 years. I did repair a Unicomp that had problems with not registering keystrokes, it was nightmare to put back together, probably wouldn't do it again, but I was a board my mother spilled coffee in, so I can't really fault Unicomp on that one.

Good luck trying to fix your board. I'm kind of surprised they won't just throw a freebie replacement space bar at you, custom keys are kind of their thing and it would cost next to nothing to them if it kept you happy.

[HV_Medic]

I watched your video, and my first inclination was to think your keyboard's behavior looked like a short from liquid spilled in it. Then I saw your comment that you may have drooled into the board, somehow I missed it. My guess is that that's probably exactly what happened, your saliva probably dried on the board leaving a trail of conductive electrolytes shorting something out. Your best chance to repair the board would be to de-solder all the switches, easy if you have a vacuum desoldering machine, very tedious if you have to use solder wick only. Thoroughly clean the board with isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush, do a final rinse with distilled water, then give it a thorough few days to dry. Test each of the switches with a multimeter, replace any that are faulty, then solder the thing back together. The board is probably salvageable, it is just going to be a lot of work to get it back working properly again.

[Inxie]

I watched your video, and my first inclination was to think your keyboard's behavior looked like a short from liquid spilled in it. Then I saw your comment that you may have drooled into the board, somehow I missed it. My guess is that that's probably exactly what happened, your saliva probably dried on the board leaving a trail of conductive electrolytes shorting something out. Your best chance to repair the board would be to de-solder all the switches, easy if you have a vacuum desoldering machine, very tedious if you have to use solder wick only. Thoroughly clean the board with isopropyl alcohol and a toothbrush, do a final rinse with distilled water, then give it a thorough few days to dry. Test each of the switches with a multimeter, replace any that are faulty, then solder the thing back together. The board is probably salvageable, it is just going to be a lot of work to get it back working properly again.

I had spoke with the company's support, and they told me the stucker was placed there by the manufacturer and they didn't care if I ripped it off. Yea it's over the only screw in the keyboard now apparently.

Looking inside, no saliva actually made it inside, looks like it rested only on the frame and that's it, so at a loss, I looked between the frame and the PCB with a small fiber camera I had. Nothing inside made it in, dry, but there was some concerns with the soldering job I did notice. The solder is not shiny anywhere, it's all hazy solder. In fact, pressing on the dip switch block made it act up further or behave depending on how I pressed on it. So I gave it a reflow, since the via's were also half filled and imo should be fully filled. Since then (and I'm typing with the keyboard right now), it's actually working just fine.

I spoke to WASD about the repair and they found it odd since the MCU only scans the dip switches on startup, but we suspect perhaps the heat from the icon fixed an issue elsewhere on the board. So maybe that wasn't the fault but it was in that area. I might honestly reflow this whole board since I'm not keen on the soldering job, it's not shiny in any way as if the solder used was either containing too much silver, or not enough heat was used.

But yea, it's actually working just fine now. Because the other concern is, before the video, it was always going into factory reset mode when plugged into the computer, which wouldn't be an issue with saliva on the key switches since that area where it was, was nowhere near the MCU nor the dip switches. So the fact it was acting as if SW4 was always on, tells me something else had to be happening.

But yea, it's working just fine now. And WASD is going to send me a space bar that doesn't have the UV coating on it since my layout doesn't have a legend on that key anyway. I was able to semi buff out the area where the UV coating wore off, but they felt after looking at the video, the way my thumb hits the spacebar, it appears my thumbnail may be scraping. And I think that's the case, because looking at my Model F XT keyboard, under a bright light I do see fingernail scrapes in the same location, but you just don't normally see it.

Huh, weird fingers, bad luck, drool, and an unrelated fault. Ironically when I first got the board they forgot an o-ring on the keyboard. So my intro to WASD wasn't exactly the best it could have been, but their customer service absolutely is, and they allowed me to attempt my own repair without voiding the warranty at all, and were happy I was able to get it working.

Another test I had explained I was doing as well, was when it was acting up, giving the PCB and frame a slight flex, and the keys that worked and didn't work would entirely change. Twist the other way and suddenly everything was working just fine. I bet there's a bad solder joint somewhere, maybe on the MCU itself.

I did notice when I did have a job while working, sometimes it would stop communicating and just repeat keys and stop within 2 seconds. That was even before last night, and I was blaming the USB hub, but now I bet it was whatever was going on, because since my reflow of the DIP switch bank it's not had a single hiccup whatsoever. Who knows now. But while I had it apart, I went ahead and cleaned the frame with all the keys off, and since it's a Hylian based keyboard, oh boy was THAT fun putting right keys back on in the right spot, since even though I can read Hylian, there's repeat letters, and R, and F, different rows, and slightly different key cap profile, so I kinda had to figure that one out. lol

Anyway, it appears to be fixed so, idk. I might still reflow the whole thing, but I don't want to tempt fate since it *is* working right now.

[HV_Medic]

I'm glad it worked out for you. Could be a bad solder joint somewhere, could also be a cracked PCB with that behavior. As an aside, it is funny you mention the DIP switch, on mine, the DIP switch was from a company called "ECE" which was a brand I've never heard of, I wound up replacing it with either an Omron or TE Connectivity switch (can't remember which, just wanted a trusted brand for my DIP switches, and I also had some squirrelly behavior with the DIP switch on one of my boards) when I did a complete switch change on one of my boards.

[Inxie]

I'm glad it worked out for you. Could be a bad solder joint somewhere, could also be a cracked PCB with that behavior. As an aside, it is funny you mention the DIP switch, on mine, the DIP switch was from a company called "ECE" which was a brand I've never heard of, I wound up replacing it with either an Omron or TE Connectivity switch (can't remember which, just wanted a trusted brand for my DIP switches, and I also had some squirrelly behavior with the DIP switch on one of my boards) when I did a complete switch change on one of my boards.

You know, it was something I was wondering, like how the dip switches worked. WASD told me it's only scanned at boot, but I was wondering, if there is a bad connection, at least for mines behavior, if there are pull up or pull down resistors somewhere, and the heat helped make a connection, because even if it is only scanned at boot, if there's a floating input that could be part of the issue, now that I re-think about things. But it's still working just fine as I'm still using it. Just seems to be one of those things where shipping probably did something somewhere, and the heat just happened to help.