Nick7790 did send me some springs (most of which I still need to get to measuring) - one of the ones I did measure (but forgot to post to GitHub) was a Durock 63.5g spring. This was measured in a Gateron Yellow housing with the leaf removed, with a JWK Queen stem (since Gateron Yellow stems have oval spring holes that tend to cause springs to catch/bind)
Every spring I’ve measured from a 63.5g Penguin ended up coming around 55g. Spring bottom out ratings are usually rated at 4mm travel, so a switch with reduced travel will bottom out at a lighter weight than what the spring bottom out nominally is, but even accounting for that they are still consistently coming in under. I bought some NK Silk Yellows recently (to give linears another shot), and they’re also coming in under:
I did find it interesting that a Gateron Yellow spring inside a JWK linear might feel heavier than inside a Gateron Yellow. The leaf/stem interaction does affect the force needed to press down, even on a linear switch - the leaf ends up pushing the stem downwards, so the leaf’s presence makes the switch lighter than if it weren’t there. Perhaps differences in the stems and leaves of the Gateron Yellow and the JWK linears account for the force difference. (see the next post - this explanation is incorrect)
Out of curiosity I did a quick measurement of a Gateron Yellow, and of a JWK x Moyu.studio Queen switch with the spring from that same Gateron Yellow swapped in, and it seems to be the case that the JWK is heavier with the same spring:
This seems to be an odd finding, and it’s also possible my load cell (used to measure force) drifted between the two measurements, so I want to take a couple more measurements to verify that finding and to rule that out. However I need to go to sleep (it’s 1:31AM), so that second measurement to verify this will have to wait until tomorrow. If this is the case - that different springs feel different in different linear switches - that would throw a pretty big wrench into spring ratings.
Also glad people are finding my force curve measurements useful 