Disassembly

Given we have hot-swappable switches, why not start by taking one apart? The Gateron Optical Brown is a tactile switch adopting the Cherry MX cross-point stem design with a clear top, brown stem, metal spring, and black base housing that also houses the metal leaf contact. As any other tactile switch, mechanical or optical, the stem is similar in design for the tactile feedback, with a bump in the slider for the feedback when typing as it travels down. This is the entire reason the housing still has the metal leaf, which is taken from mechanical switches for the cost benefit of using this redundant part without creating a new one. Actuation happens with the cylindrical stem traveling down into the extension at the bottom, with a cutout on the side for the light from the PCB actuation mechanism to pass through normally. The stem interrupts this signal at the point of actuation, theoretically triggering actuation without any debounce or touching moving parts. This results in a higher rated lifetime for optical switches, especially for optical linear switches that do not need to rely on the metal leaf either.


Disassembly of the Epomaker SK61 is quite simple. You need to remove a few specific keycaps as seen above to access eight Phillips head screws holding the keyboard together. Once all screws are removed, lift up the plate/PCB section from the bottom while taking care not to damage the Type-C connector placed into a cutout in the black ABS case itself, once again made by Jikedinghzi. The case is quite empty, which is not the best idea for minimizing reverberations when typing on this high-profile case. Users may want to add some sound-dampening foam here, and in the absence of any internal cables, doing so would be extremely easy.


The PCB is white, and solder quality is really good, including on the Type-C connector. The use of optical switches means you can also easily separate the white steel plate and PCB by removing more screws and keycaps, but there was not much to gain by doing so given I had access to the hardware drivers already. Powering the SK6 is a Weltrend WT59F164 32-bit USB microcontroller. It is based on the RISC microarchitecture with up to 64 KB flash and 8 KB RAM. There are also three separate Shenzhen Sunmoon SM16159 LED drivers to run all the RGB LEDs on the keyboard. As is the norm, all the components are soldered onto a multi-layer PCB.


Disassembly of the SK21 numpad is even simpler, and you might as well remove all the keycaps to access the four Phillips screws. The PCB is black, although the steel plate remains white, and we see the same USB microcontroller and LED drivers as well.

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.