alps keycap compatibility

[jsahmiens]

hi all, as I get more and more into vintage alps boards, I have noticed that some of my alps boards have keycaps that are not interchangeable, i.e. the slits of the switches seem to be different sizes.

for example, the keycaps on my ibm 5140 with skcm brown alps have much thinner stems than the keycaps on my chicony 5160 AT with skcm blue alps. the width disparity is so large, in fact, that when I tried mounting my chicony with the 5140 caps, they were extremely loose and fell right off! is this something that is well-known and documented?

thanks for reading.

[ppCircle]

hi all, as I get more and more into vintage alps boards, I have noticed that some of my alps boards have keycaps that are not interchangeable, i.e. the slits of the switches seem to be different sizes.

for example, the keycaps on my ibm 5140 with skcm brown alps have much thinner stems than the keycaps on my chicony 5160 AT with skcm blue alps. the width disparity is so large, in fact, that when I tried mounting my chicony with the 5140 caps, they were extremely loose and fell right off! is this something that is well-known and documented?

thanks for reading.

Yea this is known from long ago. Chicony keycaps (and some others) stretch alps streams. Just use small piece of paper on every switch and put keycaps on that.

[jsahmiens]

I see. I never knew about this and also couldn't find it on google anywhere. thanks for the tip!