My spacebar keytop is askew and stiff. I tried to lift it off (gently, of course) because a big crumb-like object had gotten stuck under it. The right side of the keytop came up, and the crumb-thing came out.

However, the keytop has a complex little arrangement of stiff horizontal wires and brackets underneath. I tried pushing and wiggling the keytop to get the wires to properly catch in the brackets. But the right side is now higher than the left. And as I said, the key is stiff.

Has anyone taken off and replaced keytops? Is there a trick to this?

Maybe it would be easier to see under the keytop if I could take off the top bezel that surrounds the keys (the “wrist rest” surface that is the top of the bottom half of the TR1). Is it easy to take off the bezel, or will it become an even bigger mess?

Here’s a “self-portrait” taken by using the Motion Eye camera in a mirror. The spacebar doesn’t look so bad from this angle, but in real-life it is pretty obvious.

Jay Lee posted on TR1 Yahoo groups saying that there is a screw that needs to be open at the bottom of the TR unit.  That screw holds the TR keyboard.

I assume you’ve taken it off again and tried to re-mount it?

jeo4long: Is there just one screw? Do you have a link to the message or any further info?

groovyone: I did not want to take it off again. Since it is on (but askew) and working (but stiff) I didn’t want to make things worse by taking it off entirely.

When I lifted the right side of the spacebar keycap up, it came up like a zipper. That is, there are about 5 attachment points underneath. I lifted the right side far enough so the right 2 points came all the way off, and I was flexing the middle point. That’s when I thought “quit while I’m ahead”.  :oops:

As far as I can tell, each attachment point is a bent wire on the keycap, that is about 1/4” long and horizontal (parallel to the top of the key). There are brackets on the keyboard base that the wire goes into—snap? sideways? not sure. It is posible that one of the brackets is broken off—some brackets have flanges and others do not.

If I could take the keyboard out with a screw or two, that would be great. At least I could get a sideways look at whats under the keycaps.

I did mine yesterday - here’s my little photo
journey through the process:

http://uberdogs.typepad.com/photos/sonytr1ap/

- CG