Digging for Switches on an Old Keyboard

I am preparing to build a dactyl keyboard and for that I would need switches. Denmark being Denmark, it was hard to get mechanical switches for a reasonable price. I had to improvise a bit to get all the parts.

Amazon.de had the switches but wouldn’t deliver to Denmark, and the ones that did deliver was twice the price for the same product. I was starting to get frustrated when I remembered the keyboard I had lying about in a drawer somewhere.

Opened the case, removed the pcb and there we were. To remove the switches I had to desolder it. I finished 80% of the job before the soldering iron decided to call it quits. I pulled out the more expensive one I had thinking this would get the job done to notice that one didn’t even reach 330°C. The industrial solder used in the keyboard wasn’t melting…

With a bit of gumption, some wet sponge and priming the solder head it took me more time to do the remaining 15 switches than it took the 70 before them. Still, in the end all switches were removed successfully. Testing a few with a multimeter proved that the operation was successful.