Matias Tactile Pro 3.0 Continued

Flipping the Tactile Pro 3.0 onto its face you get to now see the underside of the board. The clear spots you see aren't drainage holes, but rather where the pins run through the guts of the keyboard to keep everything lined up.

On the front edge of the keyboard the Tactile Pro uses these white rubber pads found on both sides to keep this in place at your desk.

In the back you have the option to raise the clear plastic feet for a more ergonomic angle of use. While they are folded in the keyboard rests on the raised bit that would surround the foot if it was lying down.

With the back feet extended the board raises three quarters of an inch at the foot and just over an inch at the back to present the keys for easier access and use.

I don't think Matias would suggest you do this, but to open up the keyboard you must first gently work around the edge of the keyboard with a small screwdriver to release the clips. They are pretty delicate and I can see impatience here resulting in broken clips.

With the cover out of the way we can now get a look at what is going on inside. The Top Board is where all of the signals are relayed and where all of the voltage control and functionality of the USB 2.0 hub is contained.

To get the steel frame out of the bottom half of the keyboard I had to first unplug the USB ports off of both ends of the PCB. I can't stress this enough, parts in here can be easily broken and if you are this far into a tear down, there better have been a beer spilled or a bag of dust poured into your keyboard to need to get this deep.

There isn't any drainage or a quick way to remove debris, but to ease your mind, the switches are tightly fit as they rest against the steel plate and are essentially sealed if you get to it quick enough and you can see the steel does roll over the PCB to aid in this not shorting out either.

We saw the side of the Alps Tactile switches, but here you can see them and the backs of the keycaps. It is easy to distinguish these against the cross shaped Cherry switches, but these are by far the loudest keys if you don't stop at the mid-point of the switch where the resistance is greatest.