Disassembly

Disassembly of the Das Keyboard 6 Professional is quite involved and with little reward to show for it, so I don't encourage anyone doing so. It begins with the removal of the volume wheel cover which itself can be cumbersome since it's on quite tightly. Now you have to use a thin, flat object to pry apart interlocking tabs keeping the top aluminium frame in place on the plastic chassis, which is not typical since most just screw in metal frames on keyboards. This allows enough room to access the ribbon cable on the daughter PCB installed in the aluminium frame and connected to the primary PCB itself, so carefully dislodge it to fully remove the frame. The daughter PCB hosts the extra keys and the volume wheel to the top right of the keyboard we saw on the previous page.


Now you will find a whopping 31 screws spread across the keyboard securing the steel plate/PCB piece on the plastic chassis with some of these only accessible after removing some specific keycaps as seen above. I don't really see any tangible benefit going with so many screws, but either way a precision Phillips head screwdriver will be useful here. The USB cable is fixed to a connector on the PCB itself and the ABS panel comes loose, whereby you will see a thin foam sheet present between the PCB and the case to help minimize reverberations from keystrokes. This is the first time I can see Das having added in a semi-modern feature from enthusiast keyboards on the Keyboard 6 Professional.


The keyboard uses a custom black PCB that is made for Das and a closer examination confirms the use of soldered switches here. Note also the cutout in the PCB and plate allowing for the ribbon cable to poke through the other side to meet the daughter board from earlier. Das Keyboard is using a VIA Labs VL817 USB 3.2 Gen 1 hub controller to allow the two extra Type-C ports from the single Type-C input. The keyboard itself is powered off a Vision VS11K15A 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 USB microcontroller that we have also seen used in several budget keyboards from a couple of years ago. The MCU also has an integrated LED controller supporting single-color and RGB LEDs in addition to several preset lighting effects, but it's still down to Das Keyboard on whether or not they are implemented. All the components, including the switches, the LEDs, and capacitors, are soldered to 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.