Disassembly

There are 15 accessible Phillips head screws on the back, and a 16th is screw hidden underneath the certification sticker. Removing all screws provides enough slack to separate the top and bottom halves of the keyboard, and you may not even have to pry apart the interlocking tabs in the plastic case pieces as was the case here. The top case piece, as with the bottom, is made out of ABS plastic and houses the keycaps as well as the first layer of the membrane switch. The media control keys are simpler buttons as with every other keyboard that uses this implementation, and the bottom piece has the functional parts of the membrane switch, the keyboard PCB, and the battery.


As with any membrane switch keyboard, the CORSAIR K57 RGB wireless has several layers of function, including the rubber dome sheet and the circuit board with the conductive pads that help make the contact when the switch is bottomed out, which in turn is translated to the actuation keystroke. The lithium ion battery is connected to the PCB via internal cables and has a 3200 mAh typical capacity with a ~3100 mAh rated capacity.


The PCB is connected to the contact sheet via ribbon cables, and is white on the side with the actual pads and the Capellix LEDs to allow for better and more accurate light diffusion and reflection. The Capellix LEDs are tiny compared to the more standard SMD LEDs used in RGB-backlit keyboards and more efficient in terms of power usage, which allows CORSAIR to have RGB LEDs on wireless keyboards with promises of higher battery life relative to the K63 wireless with single-colored backlighting and SMD LEDs. The nature of the membrane keyboard means there are fewer components soldered on to the PCB, which are on the other side that is green in color. There is a reset button on the left of the keyboard as seen from the back, which is accessible via a hole underneath the right foot.


Powering the keyboard is an NXP LPC11U68JBD100 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+/M0 Cores-based USB microcontroller with 256 KB on-board flash memory and 36 KB SRAM. The power switch is soldered perpendicular to the PCB surface, which then feeds into a plastic housing with an opening perpendicular to this to allow for a switch that is parallel to the keyboard surface as we saw before. Solder quality is excellent overall and surely machine-installed given the volumes CORSAIR operates in, with the components housed on a multi-layered PCB.

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.