So after a bunch of beers last weekend I decided to order everything for an Alps build. The buyer’s remorse has passed and now I’ve got my first and probably most important component, the donor board. It’s an Apple Desktop Bus Keyboard with orange Alps switches and a fantastic cream Alps locking switch. I can’t stop playing with it. I absolutely love the idea of a mechanically locking caps lock. Why has this been lost to time?
I’m actually glad it’s in rough shape on the outside. The case is pretty banged up and somebody engraved their driver’s license number on the back, which made me laugh since my elderly father used to do the same to all of his stuff. I’d probably feel bad stripping a pristine board for its switches.
This is what it looked like with the caps pulled and no cleaning.
So a couple of things that made me emit a bemused “huh” were that all of the top row but one were rotated 90 degrees, and that the switch for the spacebar is so far off center. I’d like to know more about why this board was designed that way.
This is what I’m facing. I have zero desoldering experience, so I’m looking to you legit pros to help me out.
I need to buy a desoldering station and I’d appreciate some advice on what I should buy. I’m probably not going to be doing a crazy amount of switch harvesting, but I want something that will be user friendly and fairly well made.
