Christmas tip for fixing a Hi-Tek 800 keyboard

[ACML]

The original 800 keyboard was an awesomely designed mechanical keyboard made by Hi-Tek. Many are still going strong, but they did have one flaw. Some will have the spacebar become inoperative because the solder pad on the bottom of the PCB for the spacebar de-bonds, falls away, leaving an open on the switch. The theory is that since the spacebar is hit most often and usually with more vigor (force) than other keys, the load (or pounding) is transferred to the leads in the switch down to the PCB. It may take 20,000+ smacks to break it, but in time, it will get there (classic cycle fatigue).

 

I mentioned Christmas tip, so where is this tie in to Christmas you ask? I'm getting there. My brother's 800 Hi-Tek keyboard had this very same failure. We were troubleshooting the issue an we were struck with a "eureka" moment. While we were brainstorming, my brother notice an old decorative ash tray (no one smokes anymore) and sees one of those cheap (a buck for a pack of 200) wire Christmas ornament hooks. I'm talking about the more recent, post millennium ones made in China. The really old ones are too heavy of a gauge for this purpose. They are springing, small gauge and very conductive.

 

After cleaning out the hole that the lead fell out of, we stuck a straightened Christmas hook in the hole, found the switch using a multimeter by checking continuity. Once we found the position, we ran some flux down the shaft and soldered it back in place on the PCB. Voila, it works!

Edited December 15, 2013 by ACML

[Marius]

Sounds good! My Apple //c suffers also from a not so well working space bar ...

 

Although I have 4 atari 800 computers they all work perfect; next to all my XL/XE machines (although a lot of my xe's do have bad keyboards)

 

Thanks for sharing!