Monterey K104

Ziginox · 06 Feb 2014, 05:21

My friend told me I should drop this in here first before I go on to edit the wiki, so here goes. I have a bunch of pictures of my K104, so I'll add them. I also discovered that the ANSI layout's blank key is a double for the \ key, but is not jumpered together from the factory. Finally, does anyone know what interface the keyboard uses when in S? Sun perhaps?

Anyway, here are some pics. I'm definitely going to retake the first one.

DSC04217 by Kasm279, on Flickr

DSC04215 by Kasm279, on Flickr

DSC04212 by Kasm279, on Flickr

Daniel Beardsmore · 07 Feb 2014, 22:32

The middle one wants to be taken from a slanted angle to cut out the flash reflection, and you may need to dial up the EV compensation or alter more expensive funny camera stuff to lighten the image.

Will be nice to have some photos of that keyboard up.

Ziginox · 09 Feb 2014, 07:30

Yeah, I might end up just trashing the middle one and retaking the other two, I have a new camera now that doesn't completely suck.

Daniel Beardsmore · 05 May 2014, 01:23

Two eBay pages I was using as references for the [wiki]Monterey K104[/wiki] page are now gone, and since you own one, any photos you can furnish would be welcome.

One photo I was referencing was of the A/X/S switch, and I can reference that to geekhack instead.

It would be nice to have one of the rear label, confirming that "Mtek" means "Monterey" — there are more eBay auctions depicting it, but they disappear after a while and I'm left without a valid reference source. (Ideally all images should get saved to the wiki for reliable permanence and ready access to visitors instead of having to jump through hoops to follow all the references. It's a real pain when so often eBay is the only picture source.)

Strangely, if I understand your Flickr photos correctly, your keyboard's rear case is a much darker colour? I've never seen a K104 like that before.

Ziginox · 05 May 2014, 02:47

Yes, the bottom is a dark gray. As for the pics, that's been slightly held up by the keyboard dying and my camera needing repair. It's on the list, though.

JaccoW · 10 Feb 2015, 16:06

I have a whole set of pictures for the Wiki as well. The full-size album can be found on my IMGUR account.

Feel free to add them to the Wiki as I will not have any time to delve into the code for a while.

(All pictures are clickable for high-res)

Picture time!

They're SMK Blue Alps. A clicky switch.

What looks like Costar stabilizers that are Cherry compatible!

The keycaps themselves are nothing to write home about. I have no idea what material they are made of. The codes underneath change per keycap.

Printing ... I have no idea yet. I'll take another shot. They seem to be dyesubs but the plastic used is slightly opaque when I shine a lot of light on it so the edges are hard to capture.

Macro shot.

And some more detail shots:

guk · 10 Feb 2015, 16:59

Keycaps look pad printed to me, scratch on "7" and also clear coating coming off. But who cares, it has the right switches. :p

seebart · 10 Feb 2015, 17:28

nice board, I might be getting one of these soon.

JaccoW · 10 Feb 2015, 18:05

guk wrote: Keycaps look pad printed to me, scratch on "7" and also clear coating coming off. But who cares, it has the right switches. :p

There is a scratch, but that's not the clear coat coming off. Just some fuzz. I haven't cleaned this board yet. I'm about to send it to someone else. Otherwise I would have been fine with cutting a key in half to check.

Some more pics:

This is as close as I can get with a 1:1 crop and a macro lens.

And a better shot of the entire board. Without the barrel distortion.

002 · 10 Feb 2015, 23:04

Very nice board. The caps look like dyesubs to me, too. In that first pic though it seems like the plastic is really shiny. Could it be that the caps are ABS and dyesub? I didn't think that was possible myself but I'm sure I've read somewhere that it is.

Ziginox · 11 Feb 2015, 02:22

The caps are definitely ABS, mine are quite shiny from use. Sorry that I never got those pics, but my keyboard is still on the bench (some keys aren't working) and I'm nowhere near it right now!

Findecanor · 11 Feb 2015, 06:26

JaccoW wrote:
What looks like Costar stabilizers that are Cherry compatible!

The stabilisers are the same on Monterey's rubber dome keyboard K208, btw. except that the snaps, plate and case top are the same plastic part.

JaccoW · 12 Feb 2015, 13:22

Ziginox wrote: The caps are definitely ABS, mine are quite shiny from use. Sorry that I never got those pics, but my keyboard is still on the bench (some keys aren't working) and I'm nowhere near it right now!

Well, even PBT can be worn shiny.
You seem to have different keycaps from the one I photographed.

It's especially visible in the legends of the Print-screen and Pause button (side-printed vs. non side-printed) and the Page-up and Page-down keys.
All the arrows are fatter like on the arrow-keys, Enter and Backspace.
The placement of the 0 (zero) on the numpad area, the ^ on the 6 and the # on the 3.

Also, the cover of your Lock-lights (Caps, Scroll and Numlock) is different.

photekq · 15 Feb 2015, 20:24

Really looks like dyesub to me. Just really, really sharp dyesub.

Daniel Beardsmore · 15 Feb 2015, 22:46

Looks like dye sub to me, too.

Ander · 20 Jul 2015, 01:05

Maybe everyone realizes this, but the switches in this board aren't actually "blue Alps" switches. They're SMK Alps Mount switches, also known as Monterey switches. You can see the subtle shape difference from actual blue Alps. (The OP apparently understood the difference, as he mentioned the SMK designation.)

Ziginox · 20 Jul 2015, 06:18

Well, the keys in my K104 aren't blue, but they do have the Alps logo.

seebart · 20 Jul 2015, 11:54

Ander wrote: Maybe everyone realizes this, but the switches in this board aren't actually "blue Alps" switches. They're SMK Alps Mount switches, also known as Monterey switches. You can see the subtle shape difference from actual blue Alps. (The OP apparently understood the difference, as he mentioned the SMK designation.)

Right, different switch:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/SMK_Alps_mount

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCL/SKCM_series

terrycherry · 19 Oct 2015, 09:48

Ziginox wrote: My friend told me I should drop this in here first before I go on to edit the wiki, so here goes. I have a bunch of pictures of my K104, so I'll add them. I also discovered that the ANSI layout's blank key is a double for the \ key, but is not jumpered together from the factory. Finally, does anyone know what interface the keyboard uses when in S? Sun perhaps?

Anyway, here are some pics. I'm definitely going to retake the first one.
DSC04217 by Kasm279, on Flickr

DSC04215 by Kasm279, on Flickr

DSC04212 by Kasm279, on Flickr

It seems not like Alps SKCL Grey that I have.
Is the slider is grey or white?