I do realize that the keyboard switches themselves are not removable, but can the caps of a switch be swapped on the keyboard to another equal shaped / size place?
I am one of “those people” that may want to map ctl to another spot… And wonder if the cap could be moved. Albeit very Very carefully…
The keys the have the same dimensions should be mechanically identical, but it would be very difficult to remove a key without breaking or deforming it.
Ok. Do you know the part number of the key switches / caps. I’d like to look them up and see what their design is.
For notebooks, the keycaps are custom to each keyboard. There is unfortunately no standard or interoperability.
I’m not looking for interoperability between different keyboards, just looking for information about the existing one.
I actually have moved key caps on very tiny keyboard assemblies in the past for Custom Communications mobile systems I’ve designed for Gov. customers. I just mod’d an existing keyboard to better suit the application.
I guess I will have to just wait for mine to arrive and dig into it.
@nrp While there is no standard for interoperability, there should be available mechanism-compatible replacements from the manufacturer (LiteON, I believe?).
I was an ACMT almost a decade ago and did a fair number of keycap replacements - tedious, but there was compatibility within generations on Apple laptops.
Personally I’d love to order swap caps for caps lock and left-control, and probably a few others (I’ve yet to get my Framework DIY).
I will say: selling keyboards as an assembly is probably the better option for most people - the scissor mechanism on Apple laptops (before the butterfly keyboards) was unforgiving when taking the caps off and the mechanism would sacrifice itself as it released the cap.
Not to disagree with an official response from the Framework team, but I have removed and reattached the keys very easily. There is a video on youtube with someone using the tool included with the laptop to do it, but you can use anything thin enough. The method is the same as for removing and replacing keys on Macbooks.
I would actually like to replace some of the keys with keys from another computer, since Framework still has yet to release their Japanese keyboard. I suspect I can find another Liteon keyboard with compatible key caps if I keep looking long enough.
Agree with Noa; I, too, have move keys around (to make a Colemak layout) and it was not too difficult. I actually have used the keyboards so much, there is visible decay to the “paint” of some keys, and now I am also looking for replacing the more worn down keys.