Safe to remove IIc keyboard spill guard?

[rdmark]

My IIc's keyboard comes with this dual layer of rubbery sheets inbetween the keycaps and switches. A lot of the 'mushy' feel of typing on the keyboard was due to this thing, and removing it made the tactile response from the switches significantly better in my opinion.

Do you all keep the spill guard in place on your machines? Do you know of any drawback from simply removing it?

 

[Drake]

My IIc's keyboard comes with this dual layer of rubbery sheets inbetween the keycaps and switches. A lot of the 'mushy' feel of typing on the keyboard was due to this thing, and removing it made the tactile response from the switches significantly better in my opinion.

Do you all keep the spill guard in place on your machines? Do you know of any drawback from simply removing it?

View attachment 1252

Get rid of it!
There's a new world of tactility waiting for you once that cursed, degrading "spill" guard is tossed into the trash.
If that rubber mat was going to save anything they'd install one into the Alps units as well haha (but they didn't)

 

[RetroViator]

Confirmed: life is better once you remove the mushy spill guard. Of course, this only applies to those of us with the unfortunate Atlanta Photociruits keyboard. I believe I left the thin and more resilient black cover while removing the gray and degrading spill guard.

 

[rdmark]

Thanks for the advice! This is what I assumed, but you never know what secondary purpose a component may have (such as the RF shield acting as the ground plane for SCSI/audio etc. in certain mid-90s Macs.)

I had extremely low expectations for the quality of the IIc keyboard after hearing all the rumors. Mine's supposedly the 1.D type with "USw LZQW01" switches. It's not the worst keyboard I ever typed on.

 

[rdmark]

At a related note, do you all keep the bottom RF shield installed on your IIc's? I tested all the contact points with the logic board, and everything seems to be grounded properly without the shield there. In my case, the shield itself is in good shape, but the paper sheet that insulates it from the logic board is water damaged and gross and I'd prefer not putting it back in there.

 

[RetroViator]

At a related note, do you all keep the bottom RF shield installed on your IIc's?

I did leave my shield in place, but the paper was also in good shape so I didn’t see the need to change things.

Good to know the grounds look good without it. The PSU still has its shielding, and we don’t really care about electrical hum interfering with RF like we used to, but I’m sure all our naked tech is making it more difficult to tune into lower frequency signals… if we wanted to do so.

 

[DeChief]

I did leave my shield in place, but the paper was also in good shape so I didn’t see the need to change things.

Good to know the grounds look good without it. The PSU still has its shielding, and we don’t really care about electrical hum interfering with RF like we used to, but I’m sure all our naked tech is making it more difficult to tune into lower frequency signals… if we wanted to do so.

Removing RF shields wasn't a problem for me until I started using a short-range composite to UHF transmitter to more easily display one machine/console across multiple CRT TVs. Really regretted it then!

 

[Drake]

Removing RF shields wasn't a problem for me until I started using a short-range composite to UHF transmitter to more easily display one machine/console across multiple CRT TVs. Really regretted it then!

Just wrap the entire machine in tinfoil!? be sure to insulate your head too with a nice tinfoil hat