Man, what a journey!! Glad it’s fixed now. As usual fantastic content. Thanks for taking the time to share with the community.

I have an original Kinesis Advantage and a single key (the '5') stopped working recently. I emailed Kinesis support and, even though my keyboard is out of warranty and I am not the original purchaser, they still sent me out 3 switches free of charge. Absolutely fantastic support, they went above and beyond. I've been looking for any and all information that will help me with the soldering replacement, and I have to say I really appreciated your candor and honesty describing the challenges and problems you had! Fortunately I have only a single key to do... but this video certainly bolsters my confidence that it can be done! Cheers, thanks for the great close-ups and soldering tips.

As SOON as I heard that you pulled the copper out I knew exactly how you fixed it lol. I built a keyboard for a friend and managed to overheat one of the copper leads so much that it actually detached from the board. I had to do almost exactly what you did, but I had a bit of spare braided wire lol. Good on ya for thinkin on your feet though hahaha

Absolutely loved this video! You really did a number on that socket, good lord. Glad you got it fixed in the end though, and it sounds excellent with the Oil Kings!

I recently put the oil kings into my 3D printed dactyl manuform as well and wow it was so worth it! They feel and sound great to type on, it was totally worth the effort. I am currently wrapping up my own kinesis model 130 modding, I have made it fully hot swappable and run on QMK. Great video as always!

Your kinesis sounds really nice after changing the switches, and since it works it's 110% worth it.🧙

Have broken my share of PCBs with the manual solder suckers too. My fix was getting a proper desoldering gun. Never had a problem with those not pulling out all the solder, absolutely amazing tools. You can also fix it with wires, usually I use a multimeter meassure what to solder it onto if I'm not sure.

With really difficult solder you might find better results with a heavy application of flux and some solder wick, the wicking action may do better at pulling out the older solder than the mechanical approach.

Man, I've ended up getting Advantage 360 Pro thanks to you) I haven't had any Bluetooth issues and it feels amazing. Thank you for the videos!

Thanks for the video man, just did this myself, you are right the thumbpads were the worst most annoying part.

The PBT keycaps helped mine sound so much better. That was enough for me. For now….

Thanks for commenting on my Reddit question, sending engagement, lol

Hey! glad to see you managed to get it back to working order! we all learn with our mistakes, but some times certain mistakes cost more than others! just wanted to say that i've gotten a kinesis advantage 2 a couple of weeks ago and i absolutely love it. it really changed my life. i had no idea how much pain i was in between my wrists and my forearms and shoulders... i just didnt realize it i guess because i was using my normal keyboards so much my brain must have tuned it out now if i ever go back to a regular keyboard its instant pain! I admit that its not all success stories, after a couple of weeks on colemak, because the kinesis didnt have a native colemak layer and it wasnt motivated enough to make one key by key, i switched back to qwerty but on the kinesis it feels a lot better. maybe in the future i'll give the colemak layout another try but for now im quite happy with my new setup! I might even consider selling my fancy mechanical custom board and buy a 360 as well instead.

ayyy I'm glad you were able to get it fixed! I ordered mine from Upgrade Keyboards with the Zealioses, now I just have to wait until October to get it 😭

I put in filler and changed the PBT key caps. I'm happy with the result

We need a service for that in Europe!

For anyone with a keyboard with MX switches, allow me to recommend trying out thick or thin O-Rings. I tried thin (blue) and very thin (red) O-rings from WASDkeyboards (which I've been using for years, on any MX keyboard I've owned), as well as the thick MX O-rings from Glorious (the 70A hard ones) on my Kinesis Advantage 360 with Gateron browns, and I think any O-rings are a true game changer. To my surprise, I most like the 2.5mm hard thick ones from Glorious. They reduce the travel and dampen the noise considerably, so it sounds and feels great, a lot better than stock in my opinion. Recently I had a chance to try a friends Advantage 360 with the Kailh box pink quiet (linear) switches, and those sound and feel rather similar when stock to the Gateron browns with Glorious O-rings (other than not having a tactile pressure point ofc). I wonder if the Kailh box pink quiets have some rubber damping inside? Anyway, It's a very easy mod (remove key cap, put ring on key cap stem, put key cap back), and I cannot recommend it enough. It does not work for MX keys with round or square box stems though, but any normal ones (such as MX Browns) are fine.

I always use desoldering wick/wire

I soldered all the key switches out of my Advantage 1 to replace them with blue clickies :O What a pain it was. I am not sure what kind of solder they used, but it was really hard to do it, it just didn't want to melt.... Luckily I was able to find half a key-well with blues, so "all the switches" ended up just one side and the thumb clusters :O

When you buy the Advantage 360 from Upgrade Keyboards, you can ask them to make the switches hot swappable for you so you can change the switches as you please. It's a little more than $100 if I recall correctly.

So happy it all worked out in the end for you... but as we say "Sh💩t Happens". As always wishing you the best. Kudos from NYC🗽.

Man I wish they had something like this with Topre/EC switches

Are you daily driving the kinesis or the moergo80? Which do you prefer for longer working sessions?

Great video, man. I intended to buy this keyboard, but the limited switch options made me hesitate. How about its stabilizers? Because after using a custom keyboard with stabilizers that have been tuned and lubed, I find it very hard to deal with unstable, unlubed stabilizers.

Glad you were able to get it back to work again. Could you make a video comparing the kinesis to the Design 68 keyboard by Vexc How? As far as I know , it’s one of the very few concave split keyboard with hot swappeable key switches.

Does anyone know what micro processor the Adv uses ? I'm using Nice!Nanos V2's in my Dactyl Manuforms (6x6) Thanks

I change my switches all the time in my Kinesis Advantage 2... Never had a problem.

"Gateron Brown switches are by no means terrible". I love almost everything about my 360 Pro except the switches (and the connection issues). They are very tiring to type on because the actuation point is much lower than the spec'ed 2mm and they don't have much post-actuation weight increase. This seems to be true for nearly all Gateron Brown variants if you look at real-world actuation graphs (outside Gateron's spec sheets). After a few months, I have mostly reverted to the Kinesis Advantage2 when I use an Advantage. I was really looking forward to about your switch replacement experiences, but it seems like it's not worth the potential risk of a total 600 Euro keyboard loss. I have recently acquired a Keyboardio Model 100 very cheaply and I have grown quite fond of it as my second keyboard besides the Advantage2. The extremely sculpted keycaps bring some of that key well feel in that it is easy for the fingers to find the keys, but it brings some benefits over the Advantage, like hot swap, a standard camera mount screw hole (for more tenting solutions), palm keys, and a much better sound.

the warranty is a joke though, they don't really cover anything. the reason you don't hear much about it is because the old ones are built like tanks, a very old tank, there's nothing fancy, no special effects so issues are rare. But when they do happen it's usually considered wear and tear, they only cover hardware defects.

Hmmm… less trouble with the hot-swappable Dygmas.

I've modded my DasKeyboard (108 keys) for practice...to lead up to the 360pro modding (with Alpaca V2's...lubed+filmed and waiting!) ... was wondering how come you haven't tried Tape-Mod or added any bottom padding to the 360 for extra Oompf feel? Also, in the video, you haven't shown what you used the Flux for? My old Das had horrible solder that needed 400C to finally melt, unlike the re-soldering which was easy 350. Did you use flux to desolder? Or did it go smoothly without it @Ben Frain? Regards and thanks for this video!

and Ben if forced to choose as your only board would you go with the Kinesis or Glove?

Which one you will pick: Kinesis Advantage 360 or Dygma Raise/ Defy?

hey fellow HMKB owner, did you enjoy that wait as much as I did?

How do you feel about the Oil Kings these days? Aren't they a bit heavy for someone who is typing a lot?

Can't you use solder wick instead ? also you really should use flux when soldering. as they say the difference between a pro and amateur solder is flux. I am not familiar with the guy you mentioned where you learn how to solder but if he doesn't use solder wick nor flux I don't think you should recommend him at all. also... the keycaps with legends are also made of PBT.

Why has nobody made a opensource version of this thing? What magical sauce does Kinesis have that makes it impossible for the custom keyboard people to make something as good?

How does the glove 80 compare to the advantage 360 for you? What makes the advantage 360 a better keyboard to type on for you? Also you had mentioned previously you often had the advantage 360 Bluetooth problems, were they fixed by Kinesis?

I'm currently using the moonlander keyboard but it sounds like you think this keyboard is much more comfortable. Do you still stand by that opinion? I may order the 360 to give it a try.

I’m listening to Sensible Ben. Y’see, I want to craft WORDS, not keyboards. That’s why I’m in this at all. Lest you think I’m being a schoolmarm, I do have a Dygma Raise 1 with Gamakay Mercurys, so I know what “sublime” means when it comes to switches. That thing feels so good it’s probably immoral.

Can you use any PCB caps, or just the ones from Kinesis?

So more comfortable than the Glove? Glove has a major problem because their shipping is even more than the price of the keyboard! Everyone is complaining about it.

Damn, I wish I got one.

If you're not going to spend 200+ to buy a desoldering gun, try something like YIHUA 929D-V next time. I also had hard time with normal desoldering pump, but that one worked out so easily.

Next time use solder wick

Use a copper wick, not a sucker tool.

Any typing test to hear a difference?

Lack of hot swap is pure lazyness, especially for THIS money. It is not impossible - requires just a tiny little bit of imagination. People responsible for design should play some tetris IMO. P.S. Thanks for the videos, Ben - helped a lot (got moonlander approx 1 year ago thanks to this channel's content - I definitely do not regret switching to split and ortholinear/columnar layout, but searching for an alternative now, since ZSA became a $$$ greedy joke - tripod kit, another pair of legs - all considering keyboard's base price being at above 400EUR in Europe; I'd throw in trrs instead of usb c and halfmoon as a bonus ;) )

Where do people get this kind of time to take apart a perfectly good working keyboard and ruin it, then spend even more time fixing it? Sounds like a pretty luxurious position to be in that you are ruining by doing frustrating stuff like this.