Rebuilding my Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014
Channel: makho
Date: 2019-11-16

I bought this thing for $15 at a thrift shop. It was greasy, dripping, and smelly. Some of the switches no longer clicked (Razer Green switches, not Cherry MX Blue switches) but I believe all of them still worked. The key caps were stained, worn, and some were missing paint or had bubbles under the paint. I overpaid. But still, I saw the potential so I got it home and started working on it. 

I had to completely tear it down, including desoldering ALL of the switches and LEDs and that took quite a while. After getting everything desoldered, I then had to go back over everything again with the solder sucker and the soldering braid to make sure that there was no solder left in any of the holes so that I could reassemble this thing. Originally I had no plans for painting this thing and installing custom key caps but once I got the originals off and started cleaning them up, I realized that some were too far gone. So while I had this thing apart, I decided to strip the plate down and get it painted. I already had the switches and key caps so I decided that this would be the perfect board for both. With the key caps in mind, I decided on painting the plate pink instead of Razer green. Originally I was planning on using blue LEDs but I decided that pink LEDs on the pink plate would allow them to shine a bit brighter whereas blue might mute the plate and blend with the key caps. 

I think I might still swap the logo LED with a blue one though. And since I forgot to do the num lock, caps lock, scroll lock, etc LEDs, I'll put blue there too. The green looks silly and out of place. 

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with how this turned out. If you count the switches and the key caps (both of which I bought without a project in mind), I'm in way deeper than a brand new Razer Chroma Blackwidow or whatever would have cost. However, I have something deeply custom with the switches AND key caps that I want. Plus, that's one less thing to go into a landfill. Counting the keyboard and parts I had to buy to fix and prepare this board (so everything other than the key caps and switches), I'm only $20 into this thing. Probably less even. Oh well. Thoughts?