Disassembly

Given the hot-swappable switches here, I wanted to begin this section with a look inside the HaiMu Linear Pink switches that came on this sample. This is a linear switch with a pre-lubed stem and spring, and well lubed to where I don't expect to gain much from taking these apart for cleaning and re-lubing. It is also a silent switch in having a dampened bottom housing where the stem hits when bottoming out, but otherwise the switch design is quite similar to other such Cherry MX-style switches in that the stem pushes the copper contacts in the bottom housing together to initiate switch actuation that is read by the microcontroller on the keyboard.


Disassembly of the keyboard is not hard and yet the two-piece ABS plastic construction means you need to use a thin, flat object to pry apart interlocking plastic tabs keeping the top and bottom panel together. As such, I do not recommend taking apart the keyboard unless you have a very good reason since it is likely you will leave marks on the plastic or even potentially break off the tabs. Once it's loosened enough, the top case panel comes off easily whereas the plate/PCB section in the middle can be lifted up from the bottom panel enough to access the single ribbon cable going from a daughter PCB housing the Type-C connector in the bottom panel to the primary PCB itself. Dislodging it allows for a closer examination of the thick foam sheet placed between the PCB and the case to dampen keystrokes and minimize any reverberations from occurring in the otherwise empty case. We also see the acrylic logo piece is screwed in place here and this can be a potential modding opportunity for those interested.


At this point you can choose to remove all keycaps and switches to further separate the plate from the primary PCB itself, and this would allow you to also potentially replace and re-lube the stabilizers too. The PCB itself is a cool white in color with good solder quality and a cutout to accommodate the acrylic piece from earlier. Now we also get to see the silicone gaskets placed all around the edges to help make this a gasket mount structure that supports your keystrokes and de-couples the PCB from the case to a good extent. The keyboard uses Outemu hot-swap switch sockets and we see space on the board for a wireless transceiver if AQIRYS had decided to make the ADARA a wireless keyboard. As it stands, it's powered by a BYK961 USB microcontroller. There isn't any useful information about this online except from another vendor of different keyboard mentioning it supports some RGB lighting effects, and we have seen this used in a few other budget keyboards from Redragon and Royal Kludge before. All the components, including the switch sockets, SMD LEDs, and capacitors, are soldered to a multi-layered PCB. Note the separate set of RGB LEDs to help illuminate the acrylic logo piece itself.

Before we move on, be advised that disassembly may void the warranty and that TechPowerUp is not liable for any damages incurred if you decide to go ahead and do so anyway.