DIY Corsair K70 Esc key repair.

[Bananasplit_00]

So my Esc key on my K70 broke last thursday when i was bringing it to a LAN, the part that broke was the stem of the switch and it broke in such a way that gluing it back was a total no. So today i thought it was finally time to do something about it. My plan was this: De-solder the Esc key from the PCB and remove it, then de-solder another switch thats useless to me(End, Scroll lock, Pause/Break) and then re-solder that switch to were the Esc key was on the PCB. This proved to be a real chalange for reasons i did not expect but here is what hapaned, please enjoy or something

 

 

First off, here is a closer look at how the stem is broken:

 

 

And here is one of the pice stuck in the Esc key:

 

 

So first thing i did was decide on what key to remove, and that landed on Scroll lock, it does nothing as far as i can tell:

 

 

Then I removed the keycaps:

 

It really took a while but here is what it looks like without them:

 

 

Then i removed the screws, but this is were the problems began, first problem was that i missed a screw, there was dirt on it so i didnt see it at first but i found it eventually, and after wresteling with the keyboard for a while i noticed the volume wheel was resisting my removal attempts, so i basically smashed it until it let go with the back of a screwdriver, not the best thing to do as i later discovered and then the last thing resisting removal was something around the power cord, so i just ripped it apart and something broke, but this was inevitable as i later discovered. This is what broke:

 

 

And when i noticed i panicked,  i thought that this was never going back together but then i look at the PCB and metal plate side and noticed a screw coming from behind the Corsair logo, i was confused because if there was a screw there i surely would have noticed, and when i turned it around there wasent one, it was a threaded stud right of the metal plate so you cant open it without breaking it, not cool Corsair.(sadly dinent take a picture as proof ) well here is a picture of the PCB and metal plate before i started doing stuff to it:

 

 

I started by locating the Esc key on the PCB, and then i grabed the soldering iron and started my first ever de-soldering, iv done a lot of soldering but i have never taken anything apart so this was my first time using a solder vacuum. I did a pretty freaking poor job at de-soldering the switch and i ended up breaking it because there was just a little bit of solder that i dindnt get with the vacuum and i couldent get to it with the soldering iron to heat it so in my rage i grabbed a pair of needle nose plyers and just riped it out, leaving one of the pins on the PCB, it was easy to remove but the switch is broken even more now . Anyway here is a picture of the empty slot from the Esc key:

 

 

And from the other side:

 

 

i compleatly forgot to take pictures of me removing the switch but somehow i got confused and removed the wrong one and then just rolled with it, i removed the Pause/Break key instead of Scroll lock so it didnt really matter but still i removed the wrong one. This time the de-soldering went perfect, the vacuum took all the solder with it and the switch just popped out of the board super easy. The re-soldering of the switch also went really good seeing as i have some experience with it but here is how it turned out in the end:

 

 

one is a little dark and burned but thats because thats were the pin from the old switch was stuck and i accidetly burned the PCB slightly  the ones for the LED(the pair at the top) are OK but the left one for the switch is perfect, not too much solder, not too litle solder, nothing burned and its super shiny. its really good  well then came the re-assembly and that went pretty easy so i wont bother showing the pics i didnt even take lol but it went good, there were some problems when i first did it but that was because i dint put in the screws so there were some loose parts in therem that were messing with it, everything worked when i put the screws in but you can really see the marks of the violance that it took to get inside  

 

well here is a pic of the final result, this is how it looks right now as i am typing this on it, looks pretty good IMO:

 

 

Hope you enjoyed this or learned something from it or something so i didnt totally waste your time but thanks for reading  

[ANewFace]

Cool, but you should buy another MX brown to solder back on to replace the Scroll lock key

[Mirdon]

4 minutes ago, Bananasplit_00 said:

Hope you enjoyed this or learned something from it or something so i didnt totally waste your time but thanks for reading  

Don't worry you didn't waste my time, I just looked at the pretty pictures.

[Un4tural]

good job, though my semi OCD wouldn't allow me having that one key missing in that place, with just an empty gaping hole staring back at me every hour of every day of using the keyboard.

[Bananasplit_00]

14 hours ago, Un4tural said:

good job, though my semi OCD wouldn't allow me having that one key missing in that place, with just an empty gaping hole staring back at me every hour of every day of using the keyboard.

well i broke the switch so i cant solder it back in