Disassembly

Disassembly of two-piece plastic case keyboards usually tends to be cumbersome, but this was a lot more user-friendly, which saved me time. A few Phillips head screws on the back are easily accessible, with one underneath the "do not remove" sticker as seen above. Once removed, take a thin, flat object to pry apart interlocking tabs in the plastic case pieces, which was quite easy and with minimal risk of breaking off the tabs, at least in my sample. This allows for the top panel piece to be removed, and a couple more screws on the PCB that keep that piece tied to the bottom case panel.


With the final set of screws removed, there is enough flex to access the internal USB cable connecting the primary PCB to the daughter PCB on the bottom case panel housing the USB Type-C port. Dislodge it and you can better examine the PCB that has the switches soldered on through the steel plate. Here, we see the Ducky logo, confirming that the MK Night Typist is built by Ducky to Mechanicalkeyboard.com's specifications, as was the case with the MK Fission from before. Solder quality is great, and the keyboard is likely machine assembled, too.


Powering the keyboard is a Holtek HT32F1654 32-bit ARM Cortex-M3 core USB microcontroller with up to 64 KB of onboard flash memory for pre-programmed functions and 16 KB of SRAM for system operation. There is also a Macroblock MBI5042GP LED driver for the onboard lighting control, and we get a closer look at the dip switches in action here. All components, including the switches, 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.