Disassembly

Given I already had one of the Cherry VIOLA switches by itself, why not begin by taking it apart for a closer look at what's inside? Opening the switch is not the easiest in the world since the locking tabs are internal too, so I had to use a thin, flat object to carefully pry apart the POM housing from the base until the transparent section separated from the rest. This has the actual embedded contacts, which Cherry calls the V-shape contact system. There is still the central pillar that goes through a metal spring to provide resistance as part of the force-travel curve itself, and the white POM housing has cutouts shaped to allow the contact pins to poke out, helping make the contact on the switch socket itself that we saw on the previous page. This is a linear switch thus, with the V-shaped lever action on the housing block acting as the travel and actuation mechanism.


Disassembly of the CORSAIR K60 RGB PRO keyboard itself is simple but involved. There are all of 23 Phillips head screws to remove from the top frame, which require the removal of nearly half the keycaps. A precision screwdriver comes in handy, and the top can then easily be lifted enough to access the internal USB cable connecting the cable to the PCB.


Dislodge the cable and you can finally separate the two main sections, revealing a bare ABS plastic case with molding process remnants as hexagonal segments. This is a prime opportunity to add some noise-absorbing foam if you wish. The PCB has more screws secure it to the frame, and it is possible to further disassemble the keyboard since the switches themselves are not soldered to the PCB—just the switch sockets along with other power and data circuitry. Speaking of which, solder quality is very good on this black PCB which is no doubt machine-assembled to hit the volume CORSAIR requires.


Powering the keyboard is an NXP LPC11U68 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0+ USB microcontroller with up to 256 KB flash memory, 32 (+4) KB SRAM, and 4 KB EEPROM. It's not as powerful as the NXP LPC54605 used in the higher-end CORSAIR keyboards, but I expected an even more budget-friendly model on this budget-friendly keyboard. All the components, including the switch sockets, LEDs, and capacitors, are soldered to a multi-layered PCB.