Stretching the word “gasket” inside-out, but otherwise seems pretty neat-o. I mean, it would be fine if they just called it a leaf-spring assembly; they wouldn’t be the first.
Honestly I think my favorite part of this one is that cut-away in front of the space bar. I’m one of those people who types wrongly, with their wrists resting right on the desk - hence loving flipped space bars - and this little divot.
Not totally new, but new to NovelKeys - and there are probably still plenty of folks that don’t know about these yet - that being something I’ve been hoping to see for years, individual components for sale as official products (rather than from resellers or overseas cone mills).
Essentially this is a series of mix-and-match (hence “MM”) components made by JWK that allow you to assemble your own bits by preference.
It’s like frankenswitching, but without all the leftovers, extra cost, incompatibility risk, confusing nomenclature, disassembly, and associated damage potential.
I can get behind that - I’d honestly love it if all the manufacturers did this, but I understand at least a few reasons why they don’t. Still, it would be great to have one side of a site/catalog be complete, curated switches and the other be a list of all the possible component pieces they can make, available a-la-carte.
As fun as esoteric things like Creamsickles made from NK_ Creams (pre-retool only!!) and Tangerines can be, I think it would be a much better customer experience to be able to pick housing material, stem material, pole length, and other factors from some drop-down menus and get some parts in the mail you know are going to work together, and that haven’t gone through the physical stress of opening - not to mention all those leftover parts you won’t have to pay for / store / toss / whatnot.
High-five to JWK for kicking this off something like this as a mainstream option.
The novelties are kinda cute, tho. Don’t like the colorway, nor how they did the stripes on the bars (even if they’re officially licensed). I think I did it better
How cool is that! The OG frankenswitch is going official. Almost reminds me of marking height milestones in the kitchen doorframe.
Hey, a glacier-slow response is infinitely better than none at all, and this seems like a universally high-five-able move to me. I’m deffo buying some. Now I just need the perfect Ice-T sticker for the jar…
I once made an Ergo Clear just to try it out, I had issues with it sticking down and not returning properly. I wonder if these new Ergo Clears would be functional without lubricant or if the lubricant degrades over time the switches will get stuck. Hopefully they tweaked some other aspects of the switch design to prevent this.
This may be a bridge too far but my biggest request is that the springs aren’t a pingy, crunchy mess that basically require replacement. I don’t mind the tinkering at all but a stock switch that performed well and had the Cherry sound would be a game changer, imo.
They might be using an existing stock Cherry spring like MX Black.
But if they actually do use good springs, and the switch are newly tooled, then it could actually be a decent switch out-of-the-box.
Cherry housings already produce excellent sound. If they’re not too scratchy. A fresh factory Ergo Clear with a powerful enough spring doesn’t require user intervention. Especially if they carefully add some additional lube during production.
I’m pretty sure they had Amethyst on sale a couple weeks ago, but the price was still too high. Maybe they will do a deep cut when they are still sitting on $220 base kits a few months from now.
65% with macros seems like the next hot layout. Man those are some big bezels though… maybe that is the other trend coming back? Hibiki has some thicc bezels too.
