Disassembly

Aha, not this time HyperX! The Alloy Origins Core may have gotten one over me, but disassembly of the Alloy Origins 60 went as expected. It begins with the removal of several keycaps up top to access many Phillips head screws, and then there are a couple more on the back, hidden underneath the rubber pads. Once all 15 are removed, you can lift up the top piece. There are no internal USB cables to worry about, so you can fully separate the two pieces for a closer examination.


As with the other HyperX Alloy Origins keyboard, we have an aluminium body case on the bottom, with a plastic lining inside to prevent shorting and make it easy to mold things, including the keyboard feet. We also see a thin foam sheet in the gap, and this aluminium piece weighs a decent amount compared to the rest of the keyboard and the usual part out of just thin, light ABS plastic. The other piece has the switches soldered through the aluminium frame and onto the PCB, which has a matte black finish.


Mockup, you say? Solder quality on the PCB is excellent, and you can see the the HyperX Red is a 3-pin switch with the red slider poking through the PCB to add accent colors for the curious few doing this with me. Powering the keyboard is a Sonix SN32F247B 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 USB microcontroller with 64 KB flash ROM, 8 KB SRAM, and 3 KB boot ROM. There is an additional Macronix 512 KB flash module for all the onboard functions, and what looks to be a dedicated LED driver with the marking removed. As is the norm, all the components are soldered onto a multi-layer 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.