Zenith SWA-4300 (ITW magnetic valve low-profile)

Chyros · 16 Apr 2016, 17:33

Thanks to Haata for patiently helping me understand how these work

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Touch_It · 16 Apr 2016, 20:22

Awesome review as normal. Seems like a pretty awesome keyboard. You say they are low profile. Is the travel distance short as well or is it standard and just sits low because the rubber dome in the key cap?. I'd love to try one out/ own one some day. The layout and look are awesome.

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Chyros · 16 Apr 2016, 21:37

Touch_It wrote: Awesome review as normal. Seems like a pretty awesome keyboard. You say they are low profile. Is the travel distance short as well or is it standard and just sits low because the rubber dome in the key cap?. I'd love to try one out/ own one some day. The layout and look are awesome.

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No, the travel height definitely is full-length. The switches just sit low - a common theme in switches from the 80s when tall switches were getting redesigned to be shorter

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Engicoder · 16 Apr 2016, 21:44

Low profile would be desirable for a rack mount keyboard. It probably sat in a tray so the flatter the keyboard the better as it would take up less space in the rack. I imagine this is why Zenith went with the ITW's instead of Alps.

Redmaus · 16 Apr 2016, 21:51

Damn this keyboard is top notch. I love that logo more than the original to be honest.

Looks super high quality, are you gonna keep this in your collection?

Chyros · 16 Apr 2016, 22:03

Redmaus wrote: Damn this keyboard is top notch. I love that logo more than the original to be honest.

Looks super high quality, are you gonna keep this in your collection?

Haha yeah, I don't think I'm gonna part with this xD . It's ironic that this thing had been on eBay for half a year or so. The picture was very bad though, you couldn't see all that much through the box and plastic, so I knew I was safe to sweat the seller for a few months ;D .

Engicoder wrote: Low profile would be desirable for a rack mount keyboard. It probably sat in a tray so the flatter the keyboard the better as it would take up less space in the rack. I imagine this is why Zenith went with the ITW's instead of Alps.

Ah yeah, that would make sense

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pr0ximity · 17 Apr 2016, 03:05

Great review, and an interesting switch that I hadn't known about before! The caps really do look sharp, interesting shape as well. Are they sculpted or all the same profile?

Chyros · 17 Apr 2016, 03:58

pr0ximity wrote: Great review, and an interesting switch that I hadn't known about before! The caps really do look sharp, interesting shape as well. Are they sculpted or all the same profile?

Thanks! They're sculpted.

jacobolus · 17 Apr 2016, 07:26

There are some Z-150 boards with black “Heath” logos.

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Chyros: you bought this one right? https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=60 ... msg1404116

The seller wanted $90 shipped to CONUS in mid-2014. What price did you talk him down to?

Chyros · 17 Apr 2016, 13:42

jacobolus wrote: There are some Z-150 boards with black “Heath” logos.

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Chyros: you bought this one right? https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=60 ... msg1404116

The seller wanted $90 shipped to CONUS in mid-2014. What price did you talk him down to?

Yeah, that's the one. He really didn't want to budge off that at first but in the end I got it for $46,37 (I think that was £35 at the time), so half-price pretty much.