It's not a bad looking board IMO, if the weird sides were squared off and it had a more normal space bar I think it would be pretty decent looking I think. The aesthetic concessions that are made to accommodate the trackball aren't in service of any functionality presently since I don't have a serial mouse converter.
but since this is NOS I still have the little blocker that can be used if you remove the trackball. This is evil and I hate them for letting this happen but I also thing it's funny so I'm leaving it like this.
This is sort of what I expected, easiest way to get split left shift compat.
unfortunately the BAE isn't just ISO with a rod stab the same way the left shift is and it's instead the worst kind of BAE stab. costar + alps is terrible, they're making their own plastic plate with integrated stabs they could have just put in an integrated rod stab in the plate and used that instead.
The space bar situation is pretty normal honestly, switch is moved to accommodate the trackball and that's about it for weirdness here.
However the tabs are pretty weak and I immediately broke one so I had to cut up a piece of a tin can and bend the bits into shape to act as new stab clips. It works well but I'll need to take this apart and lube/tune the stabs later to get them sounding better.
Not really sure what this is for.
And on to the caps and switches. All the caps except for the LED window caps, the left shift, both windows keys and the right menu key have double shot legends (and I guess the space bar doesn't have doubleshot legends either). Of the caps that are doubleshot some of them appear unusual because the legends do not have any texture, this is likely why some of these caps have been misidentified as pad printed, as generally a pad printed legend will be reflective in a similar way to an untextured legend on a doubleshot cap.
Considering this is a focus board I'm pretty sure focus made these caps, the insert key having 8 supports it would track.
These caps are not alps mount, not even close. Just a single alps cap is not held in at all and to say these caps fit the switch is the same as to say they fit on my desk. Just because I can set them there and it doesn't fall over doesn't mean it's compatible. Not only is the mount wider but it is taller as well.
I took a thin piece of plastic from a bag and folded it on itself twice, making 4 layers of plastic and that's what it took for an alps cap to fit firmly on the switch. So I guess you could make it work if you really needed a replacement key but otherwise they don't fit at all.
these switch positions don't actually send scan codes.
and yeah, for sure a focus board, as if there was any doubt here who was responsible for this
here's the focus model number, FK-7200. The box says ECO-7200 but the seller shipped the keyboard in kust the box and slapped my shipping label right over parts of it that I would want to show so I'm not picturing it here.
not sure what KF05i means or even if the last mark is meant to be an i or what.
The LED switches are really neat, unlike a lot of membrane/dome boards they're actually LED versions of the dome switch instead of a mechanical LED switch.
LED slider on the left, note the cutout in the slider to accommodate the LED.
All in all the board is weird. I Like the feel, it's nice. But the sound is weird, it has the same deep and quiet bottom out/high lout return sound that topre has since it bottoms out on the dome mat. But unlike topre these kinda have a click going on as well. when the dome gives out and the pusher returns to its fully extended position it will click as the pusher collides with the retaining tabs of the slider. This isn't super loud or pronounced or anything but it is there. The sound could probably be improved greatly with a metal plate and a better chassis honestly. I might try and lube the sliders and put foam between the dome mat and the plate to see what that does for the sound. there;s not a lot of room underneath the metal back plate for much acoustic action.
the feel is pretty nice though, I like them. They're like halfway between silver reed DWS and fujitsu peerless and I like both of those switches a lot. If this thing was built like a peerless board it would be a very excellent board indeed but it's built like a focus board and that doesn't do it any favors. It has decent rollover too which is nice. I have no serious complaints really just a bunch of stuff I'm either enjoying, like the feel, or am on the fence about, like the sound. Not a bad board if you can get one cheaply.
