Disassembly

Low profile keyboards are not that common in the first place, and having one with hot-swappable switches is even more exclusive. As such, I wanted to begin this page with a closer look at the NuPhy Cowberry switches. The top and bottom housing are held together via clips on the side as typical of mechanical switches, allowing for the lubed stem to slide up and down machined pathways in the housing with the lubed spring providing resistance. The stem is rounder inside and has a section in the middle which juts out to push the copper contacts in the bottom housing together. This happens in the middle, as opposed to the side in full-size switches. The actuation is then read by the microcontroller on the keyboard as usual.


Disassembly of the keyboard is not the easiest and has a good chance of damaging the interlocking plastic tabs used here. There are 11 Phillips head screws to be removed first, all of them are under keycaps, but three are hidden—one under a telltale QC sticker under the L.Ctrl keycap and the other two below the silicone pads under the space bar keycap. Then use a thin, flat object to pry apart the top frame and bottom case panel carefully enough to allow access to the internal cable going from the 4000 mAh battery in the bottom panel to the PCB tied to the frame. The battery size is decent for a wireless keyboard in 2024, especially one this size. There is no dampening sheet between the PCB and the case—there is enough room clearly—although we do see one used between the frame and the PCB itself.


Given NuPhy's close relationship with Gateron on the switch front, it wasn't a surprise to see Gateron hot-swappable switch sockets used on this white PCB. Solder quality is exceptional throughout and there are a lot of components here too. Powering the keyboard is an STMicroelectronics STM32F072 32-bit ARM Cortex USB microcontroller based off the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computing) architecture. It has up to 128 Kb of onboard flash memory and 16 Kb of SRAM. Wireless connectivity comes via the Nordic Semiconductor nRF52810 Bluetooth 5.4/LE/2.4 GHz SoC. A Think Semiconductor SY6201 low power fast charger provides up to 2 A of current to the keyboard, although you are still restricted by the USB interface used. All the components, including the switch sockets, 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.