deskthority

After 3 years of searching finally got myself a beamspring! I restored it in the last couple of weeks, here is the result and a soundcheck!

Restoration log Warning lots of pictures!


Just a regular saterday afternoon, browsing local add sites. Then saw this:

Translates to: Keyboard very old, IBM input or punch card station, with click

My heart made a little jump. Directly called this person by phone, hoping nobody else had seen it yet. Happened to be a very old man. Jumped in the car and drove to his house, was a 1 hour ride so very doable. His house was full of other old computer stuff from "ESCOM". He talked to me like 2 hours. He bought a lot of stuff from ESCOM when this company went bankrupt so he expects the keyboard to come from there.

So I came home with this:


Taking some pictures so I know where the keys need to be put back






Started taking it apart carefully:


Peeking under the skirt:




11 november 1977


It's really clean considering its age and the house where I found it


Let's get rid of this:


No rust




So I went to take it apart further.
Cleaned to bottom plate and oiled with ballistol:


And the outside case:





Refurbished the solenoid:


Evoperusted the screws and later oiled with ballistol:


Took the switched apart and restored them (cleaned, or evaporust & ballistol):











Ordered emdude's pcb @ jlcpcb; look at the difference




Cutting the neoprene foam:






Building time!










TADA




Solenoid!!! It was in a great state to start with, almost no rust except for some small spots. What has been done:
- Completely dis- and re- assembled and cleaned including all the switches
- Springs, screws and stems took an evaporust bath (and afterwards ballistol applied)
- All metal parts took an ballistol bath for protection
- New 2mm neoprene foam (used for the gaskets as well)
- Emdude 3277 pcb: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=16867
- Pandrews controller: viewtopic.php?f=50&t=24512
- Solenoid driver installed

oh wow, are the keycaps in their original placement ? I had never seen a french 3277, that's a very nice find, congratz on that and the restoration !!

Myoth wrote: 07 Nov 2020, 17:08 oh wow, are the keycaps in their original placement ? I had never seen a french 3277, that's a very nice find, congratz on that and the restoration !!

Yes this is their original placing! You can also see this around the integrated numpad cluster. I’m dutch btw so the whole french layout thingy doesnt add much for me personally Wouldve preffered regular qwerty

Congrats on the find! that's a really rare beamer you have there. I believe that is the data entry version with the integrated Numpad, and what's really cool is the keycaps for the Numpad are triple shots I believe! (Well, they are triple shots on my Microswitch version of the same board) Let me know if they are

Thank you! Yes they are indeed triple shot, didn’t even knew that existed xD Can you explain a bit what is rare about it? The keyboard as in a 3277 66 key version or are you referring to the specific keyset that is on it? I do know there also exist is 78 key version.

ro0llo wrote: 08 Nov 2020, 21:34 Thank you! Yes they are indeed triple shot, didn’t even knew that existed xD Can you explain a bit what is rare about it? The keyboard as in a 3277 66 key version or are you referring to the specific keyset that is on it? I do know there also exist is 78 key version.

All beamsprings are rare, but I believe they're referring to the data entry keycaps on yours, especially since it's an azerty keyboard.

Yeah that's a rarer model of a rarer model

Incredible find, especially from a French perspective!

-how do I remove a post ? -

Weezer wrote: 08 Nov 2020, 23:41 All beamsprings are rare, but I believe they're referring to the data entry keycaps on yours, especially since it's an azerty keyboard.

ramnes wrote: 09 Nov 2020, 09:45 Incredible find, especially from a French perspective!

Redmaus wrote: 09 Nov 2020, 03:14 Yeah that's a rarer model of a rarer model

Thank you all guys! My partner is from Belgium (they use Azerty over there) so I guess I will keep those keycaps as it does fit in with our family that way haha

Just finished with uploading the pictures from the restoration! Warning lots of pictures!

How do you find such a thing in the first place?

Oh cool, it's got those weird yellow barrels. Any difference in feel between the yelllow and white switches?

Hanslau wrote: 09 Nov 2020, 16:52 How do you find such a thing in the first place?

Spend 3 years checking local second hand websites daily (Ebay is no chance, way too expensive and to much competition). This was the first beamspring I’ve seen appearing there in all this time and I’m certain I’ve not missed a single add So just luck I guess.

Weezer wrote: 09 Nov 2020, 17:07 Oh cool, it's got those weird yellow barrels. Any difference in feel between the yelllow and white switches?

Yea I was suprised as well. They are installed on random keys as you can see from the pictures before taking it apart. No difference in typing feel BUT I had a very hard time removing the stems from them. They were much, much tighter then the white ones. I’ve inspected them closely but couldnt find any difference except for the color. Maybe IBM used them as replacement parts or something?

It's alive!!!! Thanks Pandrew for the Controller! Typing this on it right now



Last step will be installing the solenoid driver and solenoid and configure them!

The solenoid is connected! Again thanks to pandrew for answering all my questions via PM!
Earlier video where I had not adjusted the solenoid yet for maximum sound but here you can see the inside

nice find bro