My Mechanical Keyboard Ebay Adventure - Hardware talk

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Mafia
Long time nixers
*zip*



Yesterday I had received an order off ebay, it consisted of: 1x MCK-101 FT 1x KB-5181 and 1x Unknown Packard Bell(Unfortunately later I found it to be rubber dome :S). When I had ordered these I didn't actually know what type of switches they had, I just crossed my fingers and hoped as they were in an estate sale and it seemed pretty obvious whoever let these go was collecting them. The ebay lister had multiple others listed and I snagged all 3 of these for $40 including shipping ~(0.0)~

These were the pictures I had received(Minus the Packard bell, I won't be covering that further):

KB-5181

Front:
[Image: cvvuKEz.jpg]

Back:
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MCK-101 FT

Front:
[Image: kp5DRvl.jpg]

Back:
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So a little after I had won the bid I did a little research, I found that both these boards could have various different switches so I didn't bother with it much further. I wouldn't know until I opened them up. So I waited. I was pretty happy with what I found, in the KB-5181 I found Monterey Blues and In the MCK-101 Green Alps. I was pretty stoked. So after looking things over I decided to restore the KB-5181 and put the MCK-101 on the backburner until I find more caps for it. I'll be using a combination of caps from the MCK-101, an AEKII I had previously, and the KB-5181 to make the set. I'm super excited and am currently in the process of retr0brighting the case and washing all the keys. Throughout the time I'll upload more progress on the board but for now I'll post a little picture dump of what I've accomplished so far

KB-5181 first look(Filthy):
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MK-101 first look(these things feel smoooooth and was MUCH cleaner):

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I started cleaning the KB-5181:

Before:
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After:
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Did the case too/retr0bright(Don't have the best before pic, forgot to take one after I got it outside):

Before:

[Image: 1aAjS5T.jpg]

After(I'll need to take better pictures at some point, I guess the brightness outside + the brightness of the board made everything all glowy.):

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The Keycaps:

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And some Bonus because why not:
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[Image: XRsiRzo.jpg]
hades
Long time nixers
Fantastic pictures! Good to see someone taking such vintage equipment in and taking good care of it. Those old mechs are fantastic, and way too many of them have ended up in dumpsters. Hope you get many years of clicky-clacky out of them, and pass them on to someone else who will give them such TLC as you have <3
Mafia
Long time nixers
(16-07-2017, 04:21 PM)hades Wrote: Fantastic pictures! Good to see someone taking such vintage equipment in and taking good care of it. Those old mechs are fantastic, and way too many of them have ended up in dumpsters. Hope you get many years of clicky-clacky out of them, and pass them on to someone else who will give them such TLC as you have <3

I try lel. Thanks.
venam
Administrators
You did an amazing job at cleaning those keyboards they look brand new.
Congratulations on the new mechs.
xero
Long time nixers
unixmafix cast resurrect on old mechs

(∩`-´)⊃━☆゚.*・。゚

it was super effective!
Mafia
Long time nixers
[Image: 1396421868013.jpg]
Mafia
Long time nixers
Got it together! Photo dump + video(The flash on my phone loves to show the slightest bit of yellowing. In person you can't see any of it. Unfortunately/fortunately I like my things clean, so I'll need to work on it some more. I also found out the enter key, both shifts, and the 0 key won't work on this board. I'm a little butthurt that I don't have this the way I had originally wanted but I'll fix it soon. I'll also be switching back the letter keys to the doubleshot caps that are on the rest of the board. AEKII keys are sweet but not sweet enough).

[Image: JZZunwF.jpg]

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Video:


https://streamable.com/uhayw
acg
Members
(19-07-2017, 08:14 PM)Mafia Wrote: Video:

https://streamable.com/uhayw

Huh, that's some nice click! I'm a bit jealous right now. Looks and sounds beautiful.
Mafia
Long time nixers
(19-07-2017, 10:38 PM)acg Wrote:
(19-07-2017, 08:14 PM)Mafia Wrote: Video:

https://streamable.com/uhayw

Huh, that's some nice click! I'm a bit jealous right now. Looks and sounds beautiful.

Thank ya.
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Removed the AEKII letter keys. Not sure what I was thinking these doubleshots feel and look 100x better.

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