deskthority

I just recently found this keyboard in a really bad condition in a thrift store. Sticker on the back of this thing is exactly the same as https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65207.0.
The one i have is built from plastic top to bottom. Half of the switches there have become linear. What are these switches? Is it possible to restore the tactility and clickyness?

Sound:https://streamable.com/bvaaq

There is a handy guide in the Wiki for identifying switches. The most common types are in there, and this one looks like a match: Futaba MA series.

Worthless_Owl wrote: I just recently found this keyboard in a really bad condition in a thrift store. Sticker on the back of this thing is exactly the same as https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65207.0.
The one i have is built from plastic top to bottom. Half of the switches there have become linear. What are these switches? Is it possible to restore the tactility and clickyness?

Sound:https://streamable.com/bvaaq

There are a couple of known ways to restore the original tactility; there's a post about these switches here:

keyboards-f2/thoughts-on-futaba-clicky- ... 12082.html

That looks like one mighty dirty Sejin Electron / SKM-1030. It looks a lot more like that board than the Omron board you linked to. It's a nice board/switch if you can get it back to usable condition and bring the switches back to life.

Worthless_Owl wrote: Sticker on the back of this thing is exactly the same as https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65207.0.

Your one has two (not one) stickers showing it to be an Omron B5GS-R101-620 with FCC ID E4ECVR101-620?

Findecanor wrote: There is a handy guide in the Wiki for identifying switches. The most common types are in there, and this one looks like a match: Futaba MA series.

Thanks a lot findecanor. I didn't know such guide exists. That'll help me a lot in the future.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: Your one has two (not one) stickers showing it to be an Omron B5GS-R101-620 with FCC ID E4ECVR101-620?

There's only one.

balotz wrote: There are a couple of known ways to restore the original tactility; there's a post about these switches here:

keyboards-f2/thoughts-on-futaba-clicky- ... 12082.html

Thank you for the link.

Harshmallow wrote: That looks like one mighty dirty Sejin Electron / SKM-1030. It looks a lot more like that board than the Omron board you linked to. It's a nice board/switch if you can get it back to usable condition and bring the switches back to life.

I don't think this one is salvageable, there are a lot of loose and disconnected stuff from the pcb, some kind of fungus growing on the pcb, the connector's cut off i don't know if this one's using ps2 or something. Is it possible to make a handwired keyboard with these switches? There are 3 pins on these switches unlike cherry, i cannot find anything regarding this on the wiki, it only says that this switch have assymetric pin.

Now that's very odd. It's not impossible for Omron to have outsourced a keyboard to a rival manufacturer, but it's definitely very strange that they would use the exact same model number again.

The first question then is, what year was this made? There should be at least one IC inside with a date code on. The last of Omron B3G-S seems to have gone out of production in 1995, which is around the time that Futaba/Sejin MA series supposedly went out of production. One possibility is that Omron needed to supply a batch of keyboards after the point that they could no longer manufacture them, so they subcontracted out to Futaba/Sejin and preserved the same model number.

Many Futaba/Sejin types are listed on ePartsHub (MD, MR, MA, ML) even though they're supposedly long since gone (according to Futaba), but then, Futaba sold off their keyboard switch production to Sejin, and Sejin don't respond at all. ePartsHub canot be reached either (and most e-mail addresses listed simply bounced). So I don't know the production status of MA.

I'm amazed a thrift store would have put such a filthy board on sale! It looks like it was washed up on shore after an oil spill disaster...