I had this keyboard sitting around the house for a while and decided to mod it – specifically, change the switches to a silent one so I can use it in an office environment.
tl;dr It’s not as “hot-swappable” as it was advertised to be.
Switch compatibility
It seems to be only compatible with Outemu 3-pin switches. The contact pins are narrower than usual. I tried using an Akko 5-pin switch (cut off the the two extra plastic pins on the sides), but it still didn’t fit well because both the electrical pins and the center supporting “pin”/stem is a bit too thick. Even after shaving down the pins on the Akko, the switch does not sit flush with the top, so I would not advise using any sort of 5-pin switches as it seems the dimensions are slightly different. Some similar 3-pin switches might work, but I’m sticking with Outemu 3-pin switches.
I went with the Outemu Lemon silent tactile 3-pin switches (NOT the V2 which are 5-pin), and they work great. They have good amount of tactility and are very silent. The only noise I have now are the rattling stabilisers which I will get to later.
Removing the old switches
Removing the old switches were a massive PITA. The cheaply-made pin sockets are inconsistent and some switches are very tightly seated, and possibly also corroded over time making it impossible to pull the switch out from the top with just a switch puller.
I found that the best way to remove all the switches was to unscrew the bottom cover and slowly pry the switches using a small, flat screwdriver – both pushing the center pin out from the back, and prying the top/bottom of the switch from the front. This took me over an hour and a lot of elbow grease, and I also damaged at least 10 switches along the way (broken pins, damaged outer casing) – so be prepared to toss the old switches.
Installing new switches, reassembly
Switch installation process was straightforward. However, since I had the keyboard apart, it was good to ensure that every switch sat nicely into the board, so I pushed the switches both from the front and the back. The same problem with the socket exists during both removal and installation – some are tighter than the others, so pushing them this way ensures the board sits flat with the switches.
I also added two layers of painter’s tape (aka masking tape – use a high quality one from 3M so it doesn’t leave sticky residue) over the bottom of the circuit board to add some extra dampening.
Stabiliser noise
After having extremely silent switches, the only noise you notice are the rattle from the cheap stabilisers that can’t be replaced. There’s only two stabilisers on this keyboard: on the spacebar and right shift key.
It seems the rattle is primarily from the hinge on the keyboard plate. Adding some dielectric grease can help reduce the noise.
Conclusion
I know this is a cheap keyboard, but I didn’t want to toss it into the waste so being able to reuse it for the office would be a great reuse/recycle effort. The new pack of 90 switches costs me less than SGD $30 on Aliexpress, and is cheaper than buying another keyboard.
After typing (including this blog post) on the keyboard for a while, I must say I like the Outemu Lemon switches much better than the original Blue clicky ones which I felt was too noisy and didn’t feel great – they were wobbly and very inconsistent.