It's huge, heavy, appalling metal solid, with smooth crispness inside although. All seemed to pave the way to my ending game keeb, the relegendable and most flexible F one I own. So, what else could i ever desire most? A beamspring, of course but this is another story.
Another story that's strictly connected to the F107 one, if i should say it all. Maybe next time.
At present I'd rather focus on SILVY, that's the nickname i chose for this thing that undergone a simple glossy brushing processing. So consider that the zinc-magnesium alloy front case hasn't been chromed:
- IMG_20210405_110534.jpg (187.46 KiB) Viewed 4401 times
- IMG_20210405_110602.jpg (121.44 KiB) Viewed 4401 times
Spoiler:
At the same time i didn't commit the mistake of opening it before testing electronics. So, i dove into karlmartin95 tutorial attracted by its inviting title: the cheapest way to convert your 4704, being said by a dude who had the fucking luck of finding an ultra rare F77 on the rim of a sidewalk. First of all i needed to build an rs232db9 to usb atmel micropro converter on which upload later the TMK firmware. I needed to raise up my soldering skills aside starting a crash course on how to setup a linux VM on win 10 with Kali.
Although karl was very good at indicating how to proceed for the hardware component of the tutorial, providing a full schematic drawing of the db9 plug converter, he totally missed to say how the coupled win10-kali is a total crap that deserves to be replaced by something else, as vmware-ubuntu on osx, preferably hackintoshed, for example.
Btw i coped with all the adversities of the case and i finally made my fancy converter:
- cube_converter.jpg (101.23 KiB) Viewed 4401 times
Once i assured myself that everything was right i could proceed with the inspection under the hood.
Fortunately, all keycaps sounded good when pressed, determining that familiar and relieving F clickness we are used to. Once opened the safe i noted a quite rusty front metal plate, needing to be sanded and painted. It'll benefit of a walnut hue painting, beside a full soap washing of the plastic components, leaving the PCB deserving of just a isopropyl coat. A speech apart has regarded the coveted clear relegendable keycaps, quite yellowed by the time. After 3 retr0bright attempts, I changed my mind of spreadly using them onboard, not having obtained the outcome i wished also in terms of surface wearing. I won't give up and i'll keep trying to improve the aspect of the relegendable caps that are the very stylistic code of this great keyboard as also chyros underlined in his video review.
Currently, enjoy it as i conceived to restore it so far, but don't be too fond of it because this keyboard is beautiful precisely because it offers so many additional customization ideas.
CIAO
you’ve got balls my friend! Good job!
