Post your keyboard/keycaps!

[ZeFritz]

My ripened banana aka. NEC APC-H4124D with NEC blue ovals has arrived!

NEC APC-H4124D keyboard, yellowed like a ripe banana

2A031037-A711-4386-8874-2C4120E67769.jpeg (1.53 MiB) Viewed 9794 times

I will post it again after bleaching - trying liquid hydrogen peroxide without UV, but heated to 33° centigrade / 91.4° fahrenheit. I’ll use an aquarium heater, and that’s it’s highest setting.

Anyone an idea on how to remove and reattach the sticker before and after the bleach? Heat from a hairdryer, n-hexane, or should I try to protect it?

Sticker / label of a NEC APC-H4124D keyboard

C2772767-7E5B-46E7-B150-49456EAA6CC2.jpeg (759.57 KiB) Viewed 9794 times

[Muirium]

I'd guess a little gentle heat to take it off is the best, but I've never actually tried. Trust a more informed opinion!

The underside doesn't look too yellowed anyway, You might just want to bathe the top shell.

[doomsday_device]

My ripened banana aka. NEC APC-H4124D with NEC blue ovals has arrived!
2A031037-A711-4386-8874-2C4120E67769.jpeg

I will post it again after bleaching - trying liquid hydrogen peroxide without UV, but heated to 33° centigrade / 91.4° fahrenheit. I’ll use an aquarium heater, and that’s it’s highest setting.

Anyone an idea on how to remove and reattach the sticker before and after the bleach? Heat from a hairdryer, n-hexane, or should I try to protect it?
C2772767-7E5B-46E7-B150-49456EAA6CC2.jpeg

came back to thank you for that aquarium heater tip. works super well and doesnt need direct uv/sunlight.
cool board tho, i watched one a long time but the 150€ was a bit too much for the curry color.

edit: no post without pictures. here is my unicorn penor blue pkb-1101 (dfk191) with alps mount beige clicky smk.

IMG_0614.JPG (3.84 MiB) Viewed 9462 times

will get the treatment soon when im confident enough in the retrobrighting thing

[sharktastica]

My ripened banana aka. NEC APC-H4124D with NEC blue ovals has arrived!
2A031037-A711-4386-8874-2C4120E67769.jpeg

I will post it again after bleaching - trying liquid hydrogen peroxide without UV, but heated to 33° centigrade / 91.4° fahrenheit. I’ll use an aquarium heater, and that’s it’s highest setting.

Anyone an idea on how to remove and reattach the sticker before and after the bleach? Heat from a hairdryer, n-hexane, or should I try to protect it?
C2772767-7E5B-46E7-B150-49456EAA6CC2.jpeg

came back to thank you for that aquarium heater tip. works super well and doesnt need direct uv/sunlight.
cool board tho, i watched one a long time but the 150€ was a bit too much for the curry color.

edit: no post without pictures. here is my unicorn penor blue pkb-1101 (dfk191) with alps mount beige clicky smk.
IMG_0614.JPG

will get the treatment soon when im confident enough in the retrobrighting thing

Damn, I really like your Penor.

[doomsday_device]

oh thank you dr. shark

[Jan Pospisil]

"penor"
O_O
...
...
...
...
That sure is a name.

[Polecat]

Somebody else's...of course.

Slightly less unseriously, do these have printed or doubleshot caps? The beige DFK-191s came both ways.

[doomsday_device]

yes im aware of the flesh colored penor! the caps are thin doubleshots but colors are pretty off in the picture. my phone camera tries to correct the blue into a more grey color unfortunately

[Polecat]

yes im aware of the flesh colored penor! the caps are thin doubleshots but colors are pretty off in the picture. my phone camera tries to correct the blue into a more grey color unfortunately

Thanks, it looks much more appealing in that photo. And the doubleshots sweeten the deal even further. Nice find!

[doomsday_device]

yes im aware of the flesh colored penor! the caps are thin doubleshots but colors are pretty off in the picture. my phone camera tries to correct the blue into a more grey color unfortunately

Thanks, it looks much more appealing in that photo. And the doubleshots sweeten the deal even further. Nice find!

i plan to make a dedicated post or wiki entry when i solved the cosmetic issues (mainly the bad yellowing), otherwise condition is pretty much unused. very happy that i got my hands on one!

[hellothere]

will get the treatment soon when im confident enough in the retrobrighting thing

If you do the hydrogen peroxide thing, either with the full retr0bright or just alone, check on whatever you're retr0brighting every 30 minutes to an hour. Retr0bright is very good at turning things that used to be white into a brighter white, but it also bleaches color out quickly. Also, when you're checking, you need to take the part out, flush it with water and dry it. I've had a couple cases that looked great in the tub o' retr0bright, but looked terrible after drying.

I'd strongly recommend trying retr0bright out on broken key caps or some random grey modifier keys before trying on the Penor / other colorful keyboards.

[doomsday_device]

will get the treatment soon when im confident enough in the retrobrighting thing

If you do the hydrogen peroxide thing, either with the full retr0bright or just alone, check on whatever you're retr0brighting every 30 minutes to an hour. Retr0bright is very good at turning things that used to be white into a brighter white, but it also bleaches color out quickly. Also, when you're checking, you need to take the part out, flush it with water and dry it. I've had a couple cases that looked great in the tub o' retr0bright, but looked terrible after drying.

I'd strongly recommend trying retr0bright out on broken key caps or some random grey modifier keys before trying on the Penor / other colorful keyboards.

this is exactly my fear.
im using 0,5-1 liter of 12% peroxide solution for each case, filling up the rest with water so its fully submerged. the results so far were pretty good, but its slow (takes atleast 2 days) as i dont use direct sun/uvlight. but these were all grey cases...

[hellothere]

Just take it slow. No need to rush.

One of the really big problems with retr0bright is if you have a keyboard that's patchy. I've never been 100% successful in masking off areas with waterproof tape to only get the patches de-yellowed. I can also say that I think I have done all of two close-enough-to-perfect retr0bright sessions on Apple keyboards (Standards and AEK IIs) out of maybe 10 keyboards. The former is just difficult. Most of the latter ones I've seen look like a carrot, but have the big rectangle of brightness around the function keys where the plastic overlay for the function keys used to go. I just retr0bright until the color is uniform, which is generally pretty darn white.

I just tried painting one of my Apple Standard top cases, too. Granted, it was my first time, but I really did not like the result.

[XR6]

Here's my main keyboard, a 1987 IBM Model M 122.

[Muirium]

Nicely dressed for an M122. Always love multi-colour legends, and the function overlay looks good on it.

[schwi]

Just received this morning.
Dahlgren Wizzard keyboard.


(if you're wondering about the height of the pause key, both caps lock and power are locking switches)

[ifohancroft]

Just received this morning.
Dahlgren Wizzard keyboard.


(if you're wondering about the height of the pause key, both caps lock and power are locking switches)

What kind of switches are those? Also what kind of keycaps are those? I mean the profile looks like SA but I've never seen such a mount on keycaps.

[schwi]

What kind of switches are those? Also what kind of keycaps are those? I mean the profile looks like SA but I've never seen such a mount on keycaps.

they're oak full travel membrane. they're original SAs, i think. I'm not sure if the mount has a name, but they have shown up on other switches as far as i'm aware, so they aren't specific to this switch. they seem to fit a variety of vintage switches, as far as i'm aware, such as smk vintage linears.

[ZeFritz]

515E423F-2C6F-431B-8897-1C77A916C4DD.jpeg (783.63 KiB) Viewed 8584 times

NEC H4142D comparison picture before and after treatment with hydrogen peroxide.

[TNT]

Stellar job! Is this just the lighting or did the legends also get affected (they seem a little bit faded/transparent somehow)?

[ZeFritz]

Stellar job! Is this just the lighting or did the legends also get affected (they seem a little bit faded/transparent somehow)?

Unfortunately, the legends of the light grey keycaps seem to have faded a bit. The legends of the dark grey keys haven’t been affected.

[inozenz]

515E423F-2C6F-431B-8897-1C77A916C4DD.jpegNEC H4142D comparison picture before and after treatment with hydrogen Peroxide.

Can you tell me exact time and measuremnts you used?

[ZeFritz]

515E423F-2C6F-431B-8897-1C77A916C4DD.jpegNEC H4142D comparison picture before and after treatment with hydrogen Peroxide.

Can you tell me exact time and measuremnts you used?

Unfortunately not. I had to dilute the hydrogen peroxide since I’ve used a big container to accommodate the keyboard case, and didn’t kept track about how much water I’ve added to the solution. The result could have been approximately 3% H2O2, but this is a rough estimate at best.
My first attempt to use only heat to support the chemical reaction was a failure; either the aquarium heater I’ve used hadn’t enough power or the circulation wasn’t enough - the solution became only lukewarm at best. So I had to switch to plan B, and used UV/sunlight; after approximately 3 or 4 hours the result was pleasing enough for my eye. But this time depends on your location, time of day, intensity of the sun, cloud cover, etc.

[XR6]

I recently bought this Wang 724. 100% my favourite Alps board.

[kelvinhall05]

Really hot wang, would love to put my hands all over it.

[TNT]

Really hot wang, would love to put my hands all over it.

Nothing like a good, clean Wang

[schwi]

Wanted to get it a bit more together before i posted, but i'm impatient
Here's my scuffed 3178.. Finally a Model F owner.

Spoiler:

[TNT]

Very nice! Those blue switch models look so good

[doragon]

Wanted to get it a bit more together before i posted, but i'm impatient
Here's my scuffed 3178.. Finally a Model F owner.

Spoiler:

cleaned up real nice! congrats, and welcome to the club

[jmaynard]

My M122 started out as a 5250 layout keyboard, but it's now within two keys of a 3270 (which I prefer, being an old time IBM mainframe geek).

IMG_20210618_170523.jpeg (606.24 KiB) Viewed 10008 times

IMG_20210618_172403__01.jpeg (394.59 KiB) Viewed 10008 times

I'll probably leave the SetUp key as it is, but a 3270 down arrow/Forward key for the D-pad would be nice. A 3270PC Jump/PgDn key would be nice, too, but that one I can live with as is. A 3270PC NumLk/ScrLk key would be nice, but that one doesn't bother me at all as it is.

The neat thing about this one is that its rivets are all in great shape, so no bolt mod needed. My QMK controller plugged right up to it and Just Works.