Disassembly

While magnetic switches are soon going to be prolific, they're still rare enough to where I decided to take apart one of these GamaKay Mercury switches for a closer examination. As expected, there's still four major pieces here—the bottom and bottom housing, the stem, and a short fat spring. The stem comes lubed on the sides for smoother travel in the plastic housing, and can be swapped around given the actuation only happens from the magnet installed at the bottom. The sensor in the PCB picks up the motion of this piece traveling up and down with the switch stem, which is then matched to the actuation distance set by GamaKay. It can thus also be customized and used for multiple keystrokes, as with this keyboard, or for analog control as with some other keyboards.


As usual with such two-piece plastic case keyboards that have a volume knob on the top, the first thing to do is remove the metal knob cover here and then pull off the top panel by dislodging several interconnecting plastic tabs between the top and bottom case panels. Be aware of the two screws on the back beneath the case feet though, loosen them enough to where the top piece will come off completely, revealing a mediocre take on the gasket mount. It's more like a sandwich than a true gasket design here, although we still have some decoupling of the plate/PCB piece from the case panels thanks to the multiple foam pieces around. There is a short cable going from the PCB to the battery in the bottom panel, and dislodging it provides a closer examination of the thin foam sheet used between the PCB and the case to minimize reverberations. There is certainly room for a thicker piece though, perhaps even made of higher density silicone. On the plus side, a healthy 4000 mAh battery is used to power the keyboard in wireless mode and this should make for a relatively long battery life.


The PCB is white and very well assembled throughout, although you will notice it's emptier than typical mechanical keyboard PCBs owing to the lack of hot-swap switch sockets. The Hall effect sensors are tiny by comparison, smaller than the RGB LEDs alongside. Powering the keyboard is a YiChip YC3x-series hardware driver which is a 32-bit RISC architecture USB microcontroller as well as Bluetooth 5.0 transceiver. There are a few other harder-to-identify drivers here that might well be for LED control in addition to hosting a Bluetooth/2.4 GHz SoC. All the components, including the SMD 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.