Niz MX Compatable Topre Sliders

You can use 6.25 costar stabs.
It’s tight but it works.

https://imgur.com/a/bmHaisI

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Thanks! So is that a 6U cherry spacebar pictured? It looks like I can order costar stabilizer parts from WASD but it does not specify the spacebar wire size in U units only inches.

Costar stabs at WASD are meant to be used with standard 6.25U spacebars like used on their keyboard.
Already bought some on their site and they fit my 6.25U space bar nicely.
Those are genuine Costar stabilizers also, very nice ones.

Yes, it’s a 6U GMK spacebar.

Seems like the stabs from WASD wouldn’t be a good choice.
I the following picture you can see a the wire of my WASD v2 (top) and
the wire I’ve got from aliexpress (bottom).
The part of the wire which goes into the inserts is shorter.
I did a short test with the WASD wire. When i pressed the spacebar on the left side sometimes
the wire on the right did not stay in the insert.

I got my stabs form here.

https://imgur.com/a/uDDo6Yx

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I don’t have the problem on both my Filco and my custom keyboard using these stabs.
But I agree that if the Costar stabs that clips onto the plate have a little play, this problem could happen.

On the other side having the little legs a little bit shorter should makes removal of the keycaps easier: stabilized keys are always a pain to remove with this system.
So pick your poison I would say … or buy both and pick the ones that fits best your needs, these are not very expensive :wink:

Thx, good call. I ordered some from aliexpress and I’ll try the WASD ones as well. This is a lot of R&D to fit a spacebar haha

That is not a GMK stabilizer pictured.

It probably refers to the spacebar in an earlier reply.

6.25u wire from aliexpress should work. There is enough room on each side to accommodate 0.125u (1/2 of .25u). I reckon placing 2 stabs on each side is essential for this reason, and I would position the inner pair for the 6u spacing.

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I got my NIZ sliders and costar stabilizers from WASD in the mail yesterday. I also have some KBDfans sliders on the way and some BKE domes and a dev/tty keycap set ready to go. As soon as the kbdfans parts arrive I am planning on making the full conversion to a Realforce 87U. Seems there are differing opinions on whether or not to lube the sliders. What do you all recommend for stabilizers and sliders? Lube/not lube? If yes what lube?

Lubing helps provide a little bit of smoothness and helps reduce some of the rattle and nose. You don’t really lube the sliders though, you lube the housings where the two legs of the sliders go. I would suggest using a light to medium weight grease like 3203 or 3204, applied lightly.

I think I saw a youtube video of how this is done. I will look for where to buy that lube thx

lube the sliders with 3024 - optional.
Lube the stabilizers wires + housing is must have, for no rattle and silent stabilized keys. You can also use 3024 or something thicker like 105 grease(on the wire, not the housing)

Got to tinkering tonight. Why is that left control housing rotated? I’m debating whether to file the metal plate of the board or try and dremel one of the NIZ housing to fit. I’d like to retain the option to return the board to stock if possible.

Hey, at this point I forgot what we were talking about :)) can you post a pic ? If the housing is rotated can’t you place the Niz one also rotated?

A picture would be 1000 words right now :slight_smile:

When I said rotate I was meaning holding the finger on a key and move in a circular motion to see the wobble, how much is moves…

OK sure. Someone on here mentioned the left control slider housing would need to be rotated. There are 2 different slider housings on the stock Realforce and they both have to do with LEDs for caps lock numlock etc. Here is the left control area. Note the differently shaped opening on the plate and the stock topre housing. The 2nd pic is in the upper right portion of the board and has yet another modified housing for a LED (there is a pic of that housing in the 1st pic).

At this point I can attempt to file away a portion of the NIZ slider or just try using the NIZ slider in the stock topre housing.

Oh ! Did not see that before.

Yea sure you can pop the slider in the stock housing, as the wobble wouldn’t be really bigger and especially it’s a modifier key.

All solutions work I think, even cutting that niz housing as they’re cheap :slight_smile:

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Well I gave it a go this weekend and I ended up undoing all the MX conversion stuff. I came to the conclusion that it was not worth the hassle (at least for me and the 87U I was trying to convert to MX).

  1. This is probably unique to the 87U but I had to modify the left control slider quite a bit to get it to fit in the stock Topre housing. Modifying a NIZ housing was attempted but resulted in a deformed housing that didn’t allow smooth slider operation. Trimming down and lightly sanding a NIZ slider to work in the stock topre housing was the answer. This housing was different than all the rest on the board for some reason and needed a portion of the housing removed for a LED and different-shaped plate opening.

  2. Drilling the 2U housings went OK but felt like a kludgy solution. I think it would be fairly easy to screw up your stock housing and then what do you do?

  3. I could NOT get the Costar stabilizers to work well at all. Hot glue barely held them in place and then they interfered with the adapters below the space bar.

  4. The key sizes on the bottom row of the Realforce 87U are odd. Those combined with the 6.25U spacebar from the MX set I was trying to use resulted in either gaps or keys that would not fit.

I ended up scrapping the project and returned the board to stock. I’ll be selling the 87U and just using my FC980C stock as I like the dome weight on that one more. I appreciate all the info provided in this thread and those that took the time to answer my questions. I’m bummed it didn’t work for me but it’s not that big of a deal. I just wish there were more topre keysets available.

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Realforce 87u uses 6u spacebar IIRC. The bottom row is {1.5, 1, 1.5, 6, 1.5, 1, 1, 1.5}.

I also tried the mod yesterday, on an FC660C though. I could not get the costar stabs working either, neither the 2u ones nor the spacebar stab. Regular costar stab holes have a few millimeters of offset to the bottom which I believe results in interference between the stab inserts and the stab housings.