Alphameric foam and foil

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Nick from Devlin was so kind as to send me a little goodie back of Alphameric switches. What's interesting is that they're not the switches I thought they'd be. The ones Devlin still make as spares (after acquiring the keyboard division of Devlin) are the foam and foil version.

Goodie bag:

Goodie bag 2.jpg (382.25 KiB) Viewed 1988 times

Goodie bag 1.jpg (323.13 KiB) Viewed 1988 times

Switches:

Alphameric foam and foil.jpg (297.92 KiB) Viewed 1988 times

Even before I got home, I'd already broken one of the springs :)))

Springs.jpg (224.71 KiB) Viewed 1988 times

It makes me laugh just looking at it. I break things.

No time left to post anything to the wiki — I also took the time to do the SMK clones that padath sent me. Despite my rubbish camera skills I even got some really nice pics of the hard-to-see "logo" on the bottom. And spent some time trying to get one back together before realising I had the terminals in back to front … I hate SMK switches and their ilk, they're such a headache to reassemble, though I've found a way to get the vintage ones together most of the time, at least.

And thanks to the mess that is modern IT, my camera's hit image 9999 and rolled over into a new directory, with filenames that are duplicates of the ones I've already got. (I always rename the existing ones back a letter, e.g. IMGP → IMGO, IMGO → IMGN etc so that they're always in name order. Why I need a frigging "P" in the name instead of a fifth digit, I will never know. In fact, why not just have a whole eight digits. It's not like I haven't taken 30,000+ images on this one camera already ...)

[Compgeke]

Any chance are the foam pads the same size as the Keytronic foam pads? If so it would be interesting to know if they do runs of the pads only as the vintage computer people would love 'em to fix the old keyboards without having to hack something together.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I only have this photo for comparison:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/File:KT_foa ... ernals.jpg

For that particular Key Tronic, the slider guide unit (the part that snaps into the plate and holds the slider) is a lot taller, as is the foam pad.

For Alphameric switches: the foam pad is ca. 10.6 mm diameter and ca. 3.5 mm thick. The slider is ca. 10.1 mm tall above the pad mounting platform, which is ca. 1 mm thick. The slider plus foam pad totals ca. 14.5 mm. The slider itself is 8 mm diameter. The slider's width where it runs along the guide unit, is 16.4 mm.

They look a lot like Key Tronic but I don't know that any dimensions match.

[mr_a500]

My any chance are the foam pads the same size as the Keytronic foam pads? If so it would be interesting to know if they do runs of the pads only as the vintage computer people would love 'em to fix the old keyboards without having to hack something together.

Yes, I would definitely like to order some new pads. I bought an entire NOS vintage Keytronic keyboard just in case I need some new pads for my Victor 9000.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I'll check what options are available.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Good news: foam pads with foil attached would be £0.35 each to forum members.

Bad news: manufacturer MOQ is 90,000, so unless there's a huge rush, the only size available is Alphameric foam and foil.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Any chance are the foam pads the same size as the Keytronic foam pads? If so it would be interesting to know if they do runs of the pads only as the vintage computer people would love 'em to fix the old keyboards without having to hack something together.

Here are all the key slider dimensions:

Alphameric foam and foil -- slider dimensions.png (92.06 KiB) Viewed 1824 times

How do these compare with Key Tronic?