deskthority

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, so here we go. I'll just say that the seller had no idea at all what he had, and didn't even know the make, so he was selling it as 'keyboard'. No joke that's what the listing said. Also the board is in excellent condition, and it even came with the original dust cover. Noice









BUT WAIT THERES MORE!

This also came when I was away at an Expo Fair in Poznan:





Overall a very nice start of the weekend

...

I check Craigslist weekly looking for stuff like this...

Great find!

I like that other board too

Nice, I got that same keyboard with the same switch for 1 Euro. Lookie noobie:

keyboards-f2/ntc-kb-6151n-at-xt-t8456.html?hilit=ntc

(Love the Levis sticker though ).

Nice grab! I just picked up an NTC KB-6151ER last week for $5 CAD from a guy who was just trying to save it from the landfill. My version has Amber Omnoms though...super clicky.

Well done! Allegro? I got a cheap super clean Focus FK-2000 Plus under similar circumstances from there recently

XMIT wrote: Great find!

I like that other board too

I like it too Didn't have the time yet to test any of them in use, but I did a test with your board. Took it in hands, upside down and shook hard (looking like an imbecile while doing it I'm sure...) to see if the caps are loose. Nothing happened, everything stayed put.
I like the bamboo board, it's not my first bamboo but this one is nicer than what I had so far.
Overall so far so good. I will plug it in probably tomorrow and give it ye old whack

macboarder wrote: Well done! Allegro? I got a cheap super clean Focus FK-2000 Plus under similar circumstances from there recently

Nope. Can't find anything good on Allegro, that doesn't get swiped instantly... Lost about 4 nice kayboard, including and old Bull keyboard.

darkholypl wrote: They say a picture is worth a 1000 words

You lucky c**t.

Very nice !

Tip on that bamboo xmit.

The sides of mine where quite rough. Take some 240grit sandpaper , put it on a flat surface and run the keyboard on the edge back and forwards on it slowly until its nice and smooth, and then take some oil ( i used superior danish oil as i had some left from my new desk) and use that on the sides to bring the finish back nice.

I plan to strip it down at some point and sand the whole thing and treat it to multiple layers of oil with wet oil sanding in between.

But for now that fixed one big issue i had with mine.

EDIT

When i say the edge i mean like this

The LED holes on that XMIT keyboard are a bit rough, but the wood looks good. I'm thinking, maybe it should have a brass or aluminium lining (depending on your colour preference) in each hole, with a little lip that sits on the top of the case, similar in appearance to a PCB via.

The top surface of the wood is fine , but the sides ( endgrain ) is a tad rough , less than 5 mins work to fix with my method.

Might give it a once over with the sand paper if it bothers me at all. Will see once I sit down to it. I'm pretty knackered right now after a week of pretending to be nice to people and getting fucked sideways... so yea.

NOICE.

Chyros wrote: NOICE.

Indeed it is. I'm now a part of the blue alps club. Go me!

There is no DT blue Alps club but if we open one I bet it would be bigger than the SSK club.

photos-f62/ibm-ssk-club-t2885.html?hilit=ssk%20club

seebart wrote: There is no DT blue Alps club but if we open one I bet it would be bigger than the SSK club.

photos-f62/ibm-ssk-club-t2885.html?hilit=ssk%20club

Would like one of those as well, but they are a tad too expensive for me.

darkholypl wrote:

Chyros wrote: NOICE.

Indeed it is. I'm now a part of the blue alps club. Go me!

Indeed, welcome to the brotherhood!

Unfortunately the board is non-responsive. I've replaced a 10uF capacitor on it, thinking it might be faulty, but that didn't help. I see nothing obviously wrong with it, so if anyone has any ideas I'm all ears. When turning on the PC with the board plugged in, the lock light flicker on and then stay off. That's the only response I get from the keyboard. If I can't fix it, I will just harvest it. A shame because the board is pretty and sturdy af.



The green cap got replaced, didn't help.

One other thing I've noticed: if I put it on XT mode and power up, the lock lights flicker dimly, and when I press num lock, the light goes on brightly for a second and then dead board again. None of the actual keys function tho.

I'm not sure, I'm going to try replacing the resistors first, before I harvest the board. See if that does anything at all.

did you replace the little caps too ?


there is also a missing cap above the 74 series logic chip

EDIT

and a missing diode above the electrolytic

andrewjoy wrote: did you replace the little caps too ?


there is also a missing cap above the 74 series logic chip

EDIT

and a missing diode above the electrolytic

There are often places on the PCB to put components that are not needed for a particular board. There was never anything there to begin with. My FAME board is 'missing' a whole chip, and works just fine. That's not it.

Will try to change out all the resistors and see if that gets me anywhere. If not then I'll just transplant the blue ALPS on some other board. Need to find a proper candidate tho

Congrats, is this one the new record as long as condition/price ratio is concerned?

Nope. I picked up a mint DC-3014 a while back for $0.50, which later sold for $420 to a South Korean collector.

Mr.Nobody wrote: Congrats, is this one the new record as long as condition/price ratio is concerned?

Perhaps online, but not offline. There are people that have gotten boards for free, of course.

@ ohaimark
Wow...that's a legendary deal. I hope I can find a buyer like that when I want to sell my Chicony 5161.

@E3E
Yeah, especially in the good old days...I guess.

You can still see a photo of it on the DC-3014 wiki page. Hah

UPDATE TIME:

So after spending some time desoldering and re-soldering caps and resistors on the NTC6153EA, with no luck I've declared the PCB dead.
My initial plan was to find another NTC6153EA regardless of what ALPS it came with and just transplant the PCB. Finding one of those suckers was proving to be difficult, but I've found this guy, a NTC 6251:



It came with Grey ALPS (clones?) that I was not familiar with previously:


So I took one of the switches apart and it's more or less just a simplified white ALPS switch:


Those particular ones felt like complete and utter shite, probably because of all the dirt and/or use they went through.

Initially I hoped that the PCB will be compatible with the Levis, sadly it was not the case. The PCB was not as tall, and the spacing for the switches was different.


I want to use the bloody Blue ALPS tho! Screw it, transplant time!
I guess it's time to void that guarantee


Let's get down to all the soldering and desoldering that needs to be done on the two boards *sigh*


IT'S ALIVE!


Hope you enjoyed the photostory as much as I enjoy the Blue ALPS now
Oh and btw, I will not be selling the case from the NTC6153EA as I rather quite like it, and hope to use it for future projects. Maybe even get another one and use the PCB from that one. Still need to build me a Brown APLS board xD


Cheers!