Disassembly

First up are the switches themselves since these can be taken off the PCB easily. Both Tesoro/Gateron optical switches are nearly identical structurally with the obvious difference being that the optical blue switch has a click bar that provides the tactile and clicky feedback. Both also have a clear lens in the top to help diffuse light from the LED underneath and through the keycap above. I suspect the linear switch will end up being more popular given this keyboard targets gamers, although the provision of spare switches means that you can try out both by, say, having the other switch type on your arrow keys, or the WASD cluster if you prefer it the other way around.


Time for the keyboard itself to be taken apart. Disassembly of the Tesoro GRAM SE Spectrum is fairly simple, but you have to remove some keycaps to access the screws in the top plate as seen above. There are also two more switches underneath the two top rubber corner pads on the back. Once located, a precision Phillips head driver will help remove the twelve screws, which will separate the top plate from the rest.


The top plate holds all the switches and the PCB, which is actually screwed in place given the switches are easily removable. We see that the PCB has received a coating that can potentially help with spill protection, although Tesoro does not advertise this feature, and we will not be testing it either. The PCB design appears to have been finalized in May of 2017, and we can also see that the soldering quality is exceptional here, with neat traces on the PCB even, which is indicative of this being a machine-assembled job. The mini-USB connector is also soldered on well and has a few tantalum capacitors nearby for good measure.


There are four screws that can now be removed to free the PCB entirely, and once done, we can see the other side of things. The PCB is neat here too, with markings for the various keys and LEDs present. The plate itself houses the switches, and this view provides us with a look at the stabilizer bars as well, which means one can lube them further if need be, or even replace them entirely.


A closer examination reveals that the coating on the PCB may actually have been just to prevent identification of the components used, as most companies tend to do these days. That said, this is just as useless a job as most since we can still easily read and identify nearly every IC on the PCB. The Tesoro GRAM SE Spectrum is powered by an NXP LPC11U35F 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller with up to 128 KB of programmable flash memory onboard, 4 KB of EEPROM, and 12 KB of SRAM. Tesoro added a dedicated flash module such that the keyboard has a total of 512 KB of onboard memory for all the pre-programmed functional and lighting options. There are also two Macroblock MBI5042GP 16-channel constant current LED drivers with 16-bit PWM control for the RGB backlighting, and all of these are soldered onto a multi-layered PCB.

Before we move on, be advised that disassembly will void the warranty and that TechPowerUp is not liable for any damages incurred if you decided to go ahead and do so anyway.