So, I was doing a deep clean of my 87u. At some point, I lost the special rotated stem/plunger on the left control key (both the plunger and housing are non-standard to account for the LED). I’ve searched around but never managed to find anyone selling replacements for that specific key, only the normal stems you’d find on all the other keys.
I’d definitely like to get this keyboard back in working order, but is there anywhere I can buy just this one stem? A 3D print file? Perhaps a way of modifying one of the standard stems? Would love to get this keyboard working again.
Best mod atm in case you don’t find anyone to sell you the rotated stem is to drill out your plate so it can take a normal Ctrl cap.
requires:
stock 1u housing
stock 1u slider (non rotated, or vertical? i think? on the tabs?)
new Ctrl cap (no LED window)
dremel/file
you’re going to file out/square out the L Ctrl opening (on the plate) so that it accepts a stock 1u housing
or
modify a spare 1u housing to fit that spot
i don’t have pics atm but you can google this
otherwise u gonna have to hunt around for that funky slider.
As an alternative to getting a new housing and slider, you can also rotate the weird LED housing 90 degrees. You’ll still need to dremel the plate and desolder the LED from the pcb to get it to fit. I actually just did this mod last week and it was pretty straightforward
smart. i hesitated at desoldering LED bc i wanted to be able to sell my boards “stock” but this works too. although–i find it easier nowadays to just work on the plastic housing itself
can i see the fit on the rotated housing when u get a chance?
I think I’d rather go with the “modify a housing” route, since it’s a few bucks for a normal housing + plunger, whereas screwing up a plate is a bit more expensive of a fix. I figure if I have to shorten the housing anyway, might as well do it in such a way that lets me keep the existing Ctrl keycap and LED.
Anyway, just ordered some from across the pond, should be here in a few weeks.
The part that’s a bit harder to show on photos is that due to the switch being rotated, it will be slightly too wide in the north-south direction, so you’ll need to very slightly file those sides too. Continue filing until it fits, then remove any bits of plastic that have gotten too thin to be useful (one of them was rubbing against the plunger and producing a clicking noise):
This one wasn’t perfect. You can see I filed off too much from the corner, because I didn’t realize at first that it was actually the sides that weren’t fitting right.
I actually ended up finding the original plunger while putting everything back together, but the modded housing with a standard plunger honestly feels better than the original. Something always felt a bit off about the left control, but now it feels exactly like the rest of the keys.
