Cherry G80-3700 Mod (Plate, Switches, LED, Cable, Caps, ..)

[Paranoid]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to share the mod of my G80-3700 with you guys.
It's mostly lots of pictures so I don't have to type up too much. Be sure to click on the "spoiler" button for more pictures!

1. Taking this lovely numpad apart and desoldering all of the switches.

Spoiler:

2. Sanding the Stainless Steel plate. Thanks to The_Beast for his continued hard work for the community.


3. Putting the new switches into the plate. A combination of the bottom of the old switches and the rest of the new switches since they weren't PCB mounted.

Spoiler:

4. Placing the plate on the PCB.


5. Fitting the female headers for the solderless switching of LEDS.


6. Soldering the switches. Don't be a lazy idiot like me and forget about the U-shaped thingies inside of the pcb-mounted switch because obviously the numpad won't work otherwise.


7. Stickering and lubing (Victorinox Multi-Tool oil and a mixture of Krytox GPL-205 and GPL-103).

Spoiler:

8. Cutting the case to fit with the SS plate.


9. Assembly without cable

Spoiler:

10. Making the custom cable. Including design and 3D print of the fixture for the case.

Spoiler:

11. Full assembly

Spoiler:

12. Placing the red LED

Spoiler:

And that's it! The red themed Cherry G80-3700
Hope you enjoyed it! Thanks!

[bvtton]

Looks great!

[002]

Wow, very nice and clean mod. I am curious about the sticker thing on Cherry switches. What does it do exactly? Reduce rattling or something?

[Jmneuv]

Wow, very nice and clean mod. I am curious about the sticker thing on Cherry switches. What does it do exactly? Reduce rattling or something?

Yes, the tolerance of the top casing translates somewhat into stem wiggle.

Cute plate!

[Muirium]

It's to increase feeling of oneness with coiled spring, surely.

This photo set is what I like best about Paranoid: he has true attention to detail and knows how to take the pictures to prove it. When I go shooting my own stuff it's usually to document how screwy it is!

[Broadmonkey]

5. Fitting the female headers for the solderless switching of LEDS.

Where did you get those female header pins?

Really nice to see a kind of project log and really nice work, it ended out beautiful!

[Jmneuv]

omg i completely overlooked those pins.. these are brilliant.

[Paranoid]

Thanks for the nice comments guys! Makes my day ^^

The stickers, first time I did these so still have to feel myself what the difference is. Less wobble as Jmneuv said, possible, but it's more esthetic for me and just to know I did eveything I could to "mod" the switch I could have replaced the springs but they are light enough for me. First time I'm trying reds so I'm curious what my experience will be after typing on browns for about a year. And when I say typing it's on a keyboard of course, I modded Ducky Shine II TKL with the same switches. This log will be up some time today still.

About the LED pins, I originally had the inspiration from an article on KBDMania. I only found the article again after I already did the mod
http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/index.php?mi ... 34_cpage=1

This guy tried different approaches to use these female headers. I also tried different things but figured I didn't want to do the effort of chamfering all of them precisely so I just cut them open completely and used only the pins. I did this for a whole keyboard as well took me quite some time. You can see this here:
http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/duck ... t6805.html

You can find em very cheap on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3Pcs-Single-Row ... OC:BE:3160

But be advised, you have to be mentally prepared to do this for a whole keyboard

Murium, I'm sure your stuff isn't screwy and about the pictures, I guess it's 80% thanks to camera. I'm really not a good photographer

[GeorgeK]

Beautiful mod there chap! I've got the exact same mod on my to do list Well I think I'll be going for ergo clears but the rest will be the same Also I don't have a beautiful cable like yours... Any hints on making one for my numpad?

[Paranoid]

Thanks man! ^^ Looking forward to see yours when it's done!
I can always help you with the cable, provide you parts for example. I can also just make one for you of course since that's what I doooo

[Dubsgalore]

Modded mine as well, nice work!
Orange vs. Red!

[GeorgeK]

I can also just make one for you of course since that's what I doooo

Good point! Only just remembered that I already own one of your cables You know it's going to be a long week when you don't put 2 and 2 together...

You good sir have a PM

[Kurk]

Very nice!
I have two of those numpads laying around with a crust of e-waste dirt on them. Your post painfully reminded me that they need some love.
Could you give me a link to the source of the plate? I had a short look on GH but couldn't find it.

[Muirium]

Modded mine as well, nice work!
Orange vs. Red!

Hot damn, I love the look of that picture! And I don't even like numberpads… Keyboard porn at its sultry best.

[GeorgeK]

Very nice!
I have two of those numpads laying around with a crust of e-waste dirt on them. Your post painfully reminded me that they need some love.
Could you give me a link to the source of the plate? I had a short look on GH but couldn't find it.

The Beast had them made in a Group Buy a while ago but that's long since finished - I picked up a spare directly from him in the classifieds - might be worth shooting him a PM to see if he's got any spares.

This is the original GB though

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=42063.0

[Paranoid]

That's some nice Orange Dubs! I like the contrast with orange and black on your switches as well. Looks cool

So yeah Kurk, seems George already answered your question :p I don't know if he still has some. But it's worth contacting him, he's a cool guy

[Broadmonkey]

Thanks for the nice comments guys! Makes my day ^^
About the LED pins, I originally had the inspiration from an article on KBDMania. I only found the article again after I already did the mod
http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/index.php?mi ... 34_cpage=1

Thanks a bunch, I actually saw the mod on kbdmania some time ago, but thought it was something they had gotten specially made or something. I ordered a bunch and will check them out.

[b3n]

You can find em very cheap on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3Pcs-Single-Row ... OC:BE:3160

this is awesome, going to have buy some for next time

[BastionWilhelm]

does anyone know where i could sell one of these cherry keypads ive come across 3 and they seem popular so i picked them up

[kbdfr]

does anyone know where i could sell one of these cherry keypads ive come across 3 and they seem popular so i picked them up

Sure.
Open a new thread in the Marketplace section
And welcome on DT