So I really don’t have any extended experience with Aliaz switches, but can answer some of your questions at least & provide you with some other info. I have a few sample switches of each weighting, for any personal experience I talk about. I used the 60g variant for the pic I’ll provide down further.
How do they hold up? - Like I said I can’t personally confirm this, but I do believe Aliaz are serviceable switches from the samples I have & what I have heard from people who have used them in a build. I’ve never heard of them dying out of nowhere, having chattering issues, or anything like that. The housings compare really well to Zealio housings & some people have used them as alternative to Zeal housings for MX Zilents. The only thing I think really isn’t up to snuff with them is the black spring they come with, very crunchy without any lube.
Aliaz tactility is right on par with Cherry & Gateron browns, actually they feel even a little less tactile since of the heavier spring weightings. Smoothness wise they smoother than Cherry browns, smoother than Gateron brown/silent brown in milky housing, & just a tad smoother than black bottom/clear top Gateron browns IME. Sound wise they are they loudest of the three to me, between the spring noise & higher pitched sounds the all clear housings tend to make they do not sound good for a silent switch IMO. Although I should say I haven’t found a silent MX switch I really liked the sound of to be fair.
Searched in haata’s files & elsewhere, doesn’t seem to be force curves available for them yet. Maybe @HaaTa or @Manofinterests could run the tests for them if asked nicely since they haven’t being documented yet.
No, the rubber bumper is molded into the stem like all other silent MX stems, here’s that pic of a disassembled 60g Aliaz.
Side note - @Krelbit wrote a really good, but pretty scathing review on Aliaz switches that you should check out since you’re considering them. He brings up a lot of good points IMO.
Anyways hope this helps you make a decision on what to get!
This is a pretty good summary. The stems for Aliaz are made out of some weird slippy material that doesn’t like lubricants very well, from what I’ve played with. If you want some lubed light tactiles, try Gateron Silent Brown, but silents really shine as linears.
I think, I may be stuck waiting until I see a force graph. Thanks for the Info!
Interesting, I’m not sure I want to deal with lube. I don’t like the idea of having to de-solder switches, to do re-lubing maintenance on them as it puts the PCB at risk of being damaged.
Lubing is definitely worth it for silents. If you get the right lube, like 3204, it won’t seperate much if at all, and will make a HUGE difference in the sound.
I have had issue with the rubber dampening material pulling away from the stems on these switches, creating a ‘squish pop’ feeling on bottom out when the pressure would cause the pads to move
I’ve had good experiences with Aliaz switches. They’re basically v1 Zilents. I have a board with a mix of Aliaz and v1 Zilents and it’s not easy to tell the difference.
I bought some and to be honest, I hated them. The tactile bump felt very small, but even with lube I was getting a lot of spring ping. I also had some issues when lubing where the fastening peg broke while trying to open them which has never happened with any other switch that I have used. I thought that I would really like them since zeals are also gateron made but I ended up putting that board on my shelf and haven’t touched it since.
Just to reiterate the thoughts others have shared, I hated the springs in my aliaz switches.
As for the bump, it’s just slightly more pronounced than most browns, and not quite as pronounced as V1 zeals, but I was ok with that.
Honestly the stems and housings are nice, but the springs need to be swapped out for a decent experience. Not only to they make an awful noise, they felt rickety to me.
I just got some new springs in this week and will be swapping them in, I’ll report back once I’m done!
Hey, by way of update, I got some gold plated 75g cherry springs in and tried them out.
I disassembled a few Aliaz switches and tried a few things.
With new springs, and a little lube on the sliders they were a lot better, but I felt like I lost a lot of the tactility (most likely due to the lubricant).
I also tried aliaz stems in Kailh and gateron housings, and honestly the experience wasn’t noticeably different there.
I think I’ve learnt that Aliaz switches just aren’t for me!
I feel the tactility isn’t high enough to be a great tactile, and I’d rather type on a silenced linear.
I’ll be giving the announced Serika Durock switches a go most likely.
I ended going with blue Blue 62g Zilients. The tactility is close to the feeling I get from my MX blue board, but slightly heavier and without the clean brake away, that click jacket switches provide.