My dilemma with the RealForce 87U 55g (suggestions?)

[Lunatique]

I currently have a bit of a dilemma with my RealForce 87U 55g (black version), and none of the options I have in front of me are ideal, and I wanted to see if the community can come up better solutions.

My situation is basically this:

I currently have three keyboards that are Topre--a Leopold FC660C, a RealForce 87U Type-S in white/gray, and a RealForce 87U 55g in black.

When I got the 55g in black, it wasn't a decision I was too satisfied with to begin with, since I already had the white/gray Type-S version and wanted to differentiate from it, but my general preference is NOT to have black legend on black keys. I can touch-type very well, but for content creation such as audio/visual editing software with lots of custom hotkeys, clearly readable legends is still more ideal.

I do like the 55g weighting the most, since it's the snappiest out of the three Topres I have (though the FC660C's keys are very nice too--they feel heavier than the supposedly 45g), and I do want to have a 55g keyboard in my rotation. I also do like the Type-S too, since it feels so effortless and smooth and quiet, but if I had to pick only one between the two 87U keyboards, it's definitely the 55g. The FC660C is definitely a keeper since I use if for in-bed typing on my Galaxy Note 3 and traveling.

I've been trying to think of ways to improve the readability of the black on black keys of the 55g, and these are the options I've considered/tried:

1) Sell the black 55g and buy a white/gray 55g instead, then use other methods to visually differentiate it from the Type-S version, such as getting different colored modifier or Enter keycaps. This is a pretty good solution and the one I'm leaning towards the most. I could stop here but I wanted to see if you guys have better suggestions.

2) Sell the black keycaps and buy a set in another color. But that's not ideal, since the RealForce keycap sets are ridiculously expensive, not to mention I don't particularly like the color choices that are available--they aren't nearly as appealing as the really well designed sets we have in Cherry MX.

3) Hand-paint the legends on the black keycaps with acrylic paint and then seal them with matte acrylic sealant/varnish. I tried this and it's way too much work and way too easy to screw up, even for someone like me who's a veteran artist that worked in comic books for 8 years and did a lot of inking with expensive Winsor & Newton Series 7 detailing brushes.

4) Put legend stickers on the keys. I bought a few sets from amazon and they just didn't look very good--too clunky looking and not elegant/simple enough, even if I chose simple white legend on black background stickers.

5) Sell the black 55g and buy the anniversary version in blue/gray. I'd love to do that, but it's way too expensive and far too much diminishing returns for basically a keycap swap.

6) Buy a Novatouch and swap the sliders so I can put Cherry MX keycaps on the 55g RealForce, then sell the Novatouch with the RealForce slider and black on black keycaps. This seems like a good option, but it invites unnecessary possible complications such as breaking something during the process, or no one wanting to buy a Novatouch with RealForce sliders and black on black keycaps. I don't want to keep the Novatouch since I already have a 45g Topre in the form of the Leopold FC660C.

I think these are pretty much all the options I can think of (or have been suggested to me) so far. What do you guys think? Any other suggestions?

[chzel]

Exchange the domes between the two 87U's, keep the newly created white/grey 87U 55g Type-S, and sell the remaining black variable 87U!
Maybe I am missing something regarding compatibility?

[Lunatique]

Exchange the domes between the two 87U's, keep the newly created white/grey 87U 55g Type-S, and sell the remaining black variable 87U!
Maybe I am missing something regarding compatibility?

Wow, that's definitely something I didn't think of. I did think about swapping the keycaps between those two, but it seemed pointless since the real issue is the black on black keycaps. Your suggestion would give me a silenced 55g in white/gray, and that's awesome.

Anyone know how difficult it would be to do what chzel suggested? Is there a high chance I could break something? Or are the internals different enough between the Type-S and 55g that it's not possible?

[002]

Straight dome swap on two 87Us will be very simple. All you need is a small Phillips-head screwdriver and some patience
Not much chance of you breaking anything unless you are very gumby. There is more risk that you will lose a spring or screw or something, but that can be avoided if you are patient and have a good work area. Just to nitpick a bit, the 'Type-S' badge is not actually applied to the Realforce for some reason, only the HHKB. The silenced Realforce boards are usually either advertised as 'Silent' or 'Low Noise'.

[Lunatique]

Ahh, okay.

So if I were to take that route, the remaining question is, whether I will be able to sell a RealForce 87U that's silent variable weight with black-on-black keycaps. Do you guys think there will be enough interest in a keyboard like that?

[chzel]

The black won't be silent, mind you. The silent thing has nothing to do with the domes. It has damping on the sliders and the would remain in their respective frames.
I don't think you'd have any issue selling it at a decent price. How much that could be, I believe 002 is more qualified to suggest!

[002]

Yep chzel is right, you'd have a bog standard 87U variable, not silenced. Unfortunately they are not very popular although I like mine (it's my main work keyboard). You shouldn't have any trouble selling it if you discount it $15-$20 from EK's price, that's assuming it's in good condition.

[Lunatique]

Yeah, that was a brain-fart on my part. I forgot it's the 55g that will be silenced (in the white/gray frame), and the black will just be variable weight.

Would the silencing change the way the 55g feels, or only the sound will change (which doesn't really matter that much to me)?

[vinzbe]

My fingers didn't feel much change on a silenced 55g. Apart from the volume, the sound of a silenced version is more satisfying IMO. So in a way, it DOES feel different.

I did the following to avoid playing puzzle games with the domes and spring when creating a silenced 55g :
- dismount the externel shell (move the 4 clips with your fingers)
- disconnect the usb cable and deattach the screw maintaining the cable
- put out the plate, and put it keycaps side down
- remove all the screws (~37)
- maintain the 2 parts (slider and pcb) together (careful) and flip it back (Hello again keycaps).
- remove the sliders plate and exchange it with the other silenced (or non-silenced) version. You will probably have to readjust some domes since they are very loosely attached with some kind of glue to the pcb.
- maintain the 2 parts together (careful again) and flip it again
- put back the screw. At first you have to force the 2 plates to join, so it's better to start with 2 screws in the middle
- remount the remaining parts of the keyboard

[Lunatique]

Thanks so much for that.

Too bad you didn't document your adventure with photos/video.

When you say "maintain the 2 parts (slider and pcb) together (careful) and flip it back," it's hard for me to visualize it. Can you elaborate on that by using this guy's photos? http://www.geocities.co.jp/kousaku_situ ... pata1.html

[002]

What he means is that after you remove the 37 screws, if you then tried to lift the PCB, it would very likely bring the domes with it and springs will fall out everywhere if the dome sheet is not completely stuck to the PCB. As vinzbe points out, there seems as though there is a very weak adhesive holding the domes to the PCB, but personally I don't think there is, I think it's just a kind of suction or humidity thing that loosely holds the domes in place.

In the link you sent, you will see in this picture, that the guy is removing the final screws from the bottom whilst holding the PCB and mounting plate up in the air. This is probably so he doesn't have to flip the PCB and mounting plate afterwards.

I do it the way that vinzbe did it too. Remove *all* screws while the PCB and mounting plate is face down on the table, then hold the PCB and the mounting plate together like a burger of sorts and flip it over so the keycaps are now the right way up. Then you can simply lift the mounting plate off the domes, like illustrated here.

[Lunatique]

Gotcha. I think I can do this without screwing up, now that I have pretty much all the info I need. Thanks for the help!

[002]

I'll also add that on some Topre boards I own, the dome sheet was so loosely set on the PCB that it slid around everywhere. If this happens and you're struggling to align the domes on the PCB, I've actually found it easier to position the dome sheet and springs inside the sliders while the keycaps are still face down.

The trick to doing it this way is that you need a couple of books or something either side of the mounting plate to hold the keycaps up off the table so the sliders are not being pushed through (as this will prevent the domes from nestling down into the sliders).

I found that this method is also much more accurate and less likely to result in a "pinched dome" as you screw everything back together.

Let me know if you want a picture of this method...good luck

[Lunatique]

Let me know if you want a picture of this method...good luck

Pictures are always helpful, since I'm a very visual guy, and without having actually taken the keyboard apart before, it's hard to really understand the instructions by description alone.

There must be others who have done this and taken photos/video? Wouldn't someone like Ripster have done it? (I've only seen him do it to the Novatouch, I think.)

[002]

I'll take some pics over the weekend for you. If I am really bored I might even try and record a video of a dome transplant

[Lunatique]

Awesome!

[Madhias]

I'll take some pics over the weekend for you. If I am really bored I might even try and record a video of a dome transplant

Perfect, i am also looking forward to see some more pictures! I don't know yet if i should modify anything on my beloved Realforce 87U board, since i love it as it is!

[seebart]

I'm in a similair situation as you are right now. I recently got my first HHKB here at DT and love it , but the black legend keys do not makes things easier migrating from "full size" keyboards. Like most users here I know how scarce and pricey Topre keycap sets are. I allmost got xauser green ANSI Realforce Set but went for the Japan import instead:

http://www.smartimports.net/categories/Keyboards/

[Muirium]

Being an IBM guy, I instinctively went for the "between two big books, caps down" method for my NovaTouches, which is dead easy and risk free. I never even thought of doing things inverted, because with IBMs, all your buckling springs would fall out!

Chzel gave you the right answer straight away! You don't even have to pull out sliders this way, which is a huge win.

Your other solutions weren't great, and one in particular I should warn about: NovaTouch sliders are NOT 100% compatible with Realforce internals. NovaTouch sliders are a bit bigger, so wind up being much too tight for comfort.

[andrewjoy]

Ahh the joy of putting a ibm back together, new words of insult where invented just for the moment where you get EVERYTHING back together and one hammer has moved and you have to open the WHOLE thing again and take ALL the caps off.

Now when everything is in place i don't slide plates back together i just knock 10 types of shit out of them with a rubber hammer works very well, model f's are made to take it.

[002]

Hey guys. I made my first ever (talky) video demonstrating how to open a Realforce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3HhDMS-nNE

I made a few mistakes here and there:

- At the start, I suggest that the Realforce is not held together with any screws. I should have clarified there that I meant just the case is held shut without screws, which becomes obvious pretty soon in the video

- I mention that the black screws don't go into the mounting plate, but they do. The difference is that the silver screws have threaded standoffs that they go into, whereas the black ones don't.

I have opened a YouTube channel called 'Deskthority', and if anyone else is interested in posting keyboard related videos or tutorials there, I should be able to make you a contributor/admin/whatever YouTube calls it.
Also, I am not sure why the video is in 360p, sorry about that. The raw file is in 1920 x 1080 resolution so don't know what happened there. Hope it's useful!

[Lunatique]

Thanks you so much for making that video! It's so helpful to see a video tutorial, and it'll not only help me, but every person who needs to take apart a RealForce keyboard (or Topre keyboard) in the future.

Maybe now that there's a Deskthority channel, more people will be uploading informative videos, instead of the typical "here's the sound of me typing on this keyboard" and unboxing videos.

[Muirium]

Nice vid. Plays as full 1080p here. Learned a thing or two myself, despite having done this a few times now on the NovaTouches. Silver screws out last and in first! I just treated both screw types the same, around the board. Works either way.

Good point about checking for springs within springs. The rubber sheet on the ISO NovaTouch in particular is divided into more areas than your JIS Realforce. It was the first I opened, and not expecting this I had springs rolling everywhere, and thought I was five or so short at the end until I went hunting. Sometimes they even stack >2 per dome!

Again, past IBM experience led me to automatically remove all the caps when doing this stuff. Unnecessary! But just you try swapping hammers on a Model F with the caps on!

Interesting to see a variable weight Realforce containing just the one rubber sheet for both dome types. After seeing the way they'd diced up the innards of my ISO NovaTouch, which is evenly weighted of course, I presumed the variable weight Realforces had different rubber sheets for each weighting zone. Evidently not.

Only two disappointments from this video. YouTube suggested a "Model M in the DISHWASHER!!11!!" vid to me straight after. Boo! And you haven't half the accent I imagined, mate.

[scottc]

Great video, OO2. Now I can finally pronounce 'Topre'...

That's a really nice-looking board, by the way. I'm going to have to get my hands on a JIS TKL Realforce some day.

[Muirium]

You weren't calling them Toppree were you?

[scottc]

I've been saying something more like "toap-rah" than "top-ray"... Don't ask! At least I don't say "Lie-nux"...

OO2, YouTube's automatic subtitles are having a hard time with your accent, and the results are... er... interesting!

[Muirium]

Lie-nucks is totally the right way to say it! I first read about Linux in computer magazines… (yes, they were a thing) years before I ever heard someone say it who hadn't found out the same way. The guy's called Linus Torvalds, after all!

It was a fair assumption. And once I've said something wrong enough times, it sticks forever. Good job I don't use it.

Anyway, as for Topre:

Right: Toe-pray.
Wrong: Toe-praw, top-ra, top-ree and tope-ray.

Meanwhile, the irony of a Scotsman and an Irishman commenting on an Australian's accent is not lost on me.

[scottc]

I was the same: I first heard about it years before I knew anybody else who was familiar with it, and I'd never seen this:

http://www.paul.sladen.org/pronunciation/

Anyway, I'll take extra care of my Toe Pray HHKB from now on...

[Muirium]

It's PFU!

Re: (It's a) Lie-nucks, I know Linn-us Torvalds says it Linn-icks, but I'd already gotten used to the other, more natural sounding way to say it. So no going back. I'm the same way with all manner of things. Especially people's names. It's usually just the stress I get wrong. Stressing early syllables, as Scots so often do, which worked well in Topre's case…

[Hypersphere]

If you don't like the rainbow of colors available in Topre keycap sets, they do sell white sets. And I've seen used black on dark gray sets for sale in the keyboard forums.