Tai-Hao FAME TH-5539 (Aruz switches)

[Chyros]

Another new-in-box keyboard, this time with rare Aruz switches!

Hope you enjoy it!

[Redmaus]

I love the reference to the guy that wanted to sell the switches by packs of ten

I had a board just like this but instead of Aruz swithes I got APC swithes

[livingspeedbump]

fantastic video as always.

that slant with the feet out though

[itzmeluigi]

Very nice review. Im surprised Tai-Hao made good switches since their APC switches were pretty bad. Although its a shame it uses a plastic plate, would probably do the switches much more justice with a steel one. Do the Aruz switches use Omron or Alps compatible pins? Or do they use their own type of pin layout?

[Chyros]

Very nice review. Im surprised Tai-Hao made good switches since their APC switches were pretty bad. Although its a shame it uses a plastic plate, would probably do the switches much more justice with a steel one. Do the Aruz switches use Omron or Alps compatible pins? Or do they use their own type of pin layout?

They use a two-leg pinout with a different spacing than Alps, so they're compatible with neither, unfortunately.

[Redmaus]

Yeah that kind of killed my interest in getting an aruz switch, glad they could stay with the original board

[Tuntematon]

Nice review, you pretty much echoed my thoughts on Aruz. I'd like to mention that my TH-5539, with a much earlier serial number, does in fact have a metal backplate. The plastic top casing feels solid too. Not much flex to the case and it's very heavy for its size. It's actually one of the sturdiest vintage keyboards I've encountered. Visually, it is the same design. The switches are also PCB-mount, so there is a fair amount of play if you really push down, but in my opinion it's not a problem. The typing feel is still excellent.

See how the TH-5539 line degrades:

-- Alps Bigfoot, Alps SKCM Blue
-- Slim design, metal bottom casing, Tai-Hao Aruz, thick doubleshot
-- Slim design, all plastic, Tai-Hao Aruz, thick doubleshot
-- Slim design, all plastic, Tai-Hao APC, thick doubleshot
-- Slim design, all plastic, Tai-Hao APC, thin doubleshot

[Chyros]

Unfortunately something similar is true for all keyboard lines xD . Some degraded more steeply than others, but even the model M lost almost a kilo in weight over time xD .

[Chyros]

Follow-up; the plot thickens! Now that I've removed the keycaps to send back to the original owner (like I said), I discovered a few weird things.





1) The plate has holes for Alps stabilisers, but the keycaps have Cherry stabiliser mounts. The keyboard doesn't actually use any of the stabiliser holes except for enter and space.
2) The enter key uses both rod and wire stabilisers.
3) The enter key uses a genuine white Alps switch of a fairly early make; it's one with a blue top housing and long white switchplate (but it does have a logo). When testing the bare switches next to each other, the Alps switch feels heavier than the Aruz ones.

Here's the board with the Focus set on it, as I said I would. As you can see it fits it pretty well, and the board now has the strange distinction of being better stabilised than it was originally as I have fully compatible stabilisers for it xD . I think it looks pretty good this way!

[Dra]

They use a two-leg pinout with a different spacing than Alps, so they're compatible with neither, unfortunately.

I actually have a theory that they may use cherry compatible pin spacing, looking at the picture on the wiki it seems like the Alps/Aruz soldering joints are the same as on modern alps/cherry boards like the Infinity, any chance you could check?

[Redmaus]

I think I heard they weren't, but checking isn't a bad idea if they were that would be so cool.

[Chyros]

I can't really check that, the solder joints are rather huge.

[Redmaus]

Do you mean the solder leads?

[Dra]

I was gonna check if the one i had didn't have those unbranded white alps clones, sucks that you can't check chyros

[Wodan]

Keycaps received, thanks alot Chyros
I just don't appreciate keyboards like you do!

[Chyros]

Cool, glad they arrived safely . Hey, the more cool vintage keyboards I can save the better ^^ .