Interesting Finds & Heads-Ups

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Goddamnit I wasn’t the only one who thought of that :rofl:

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Switch Oddities just posted a switch identification guide. I’m still reading through it but it’s nice to see some documentation like this.

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A bunch of new larger XVX sets in “common clone” colorways have popped up now

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Interesting - those look a whole lot like “CXA” profile. Like… a lot

Speculation:* (Edit; speculation was incorrect, see after divider below)

I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’re made with the same tooling, and intended for sale in different markets so as not to directly compete / violate any agreements.

$15 is cheap by any measure, but certainly cheaper than the $80 that CXA costs. That does make me wonder if there are other differences besides intended market - say, plastic blend or quality thereof.

In terms of shape, these look identical to CXA right down to the legends and stem shape. Cannon Keys says CXA is a PBT/ABS blend, while Teclas says theirs is “PBT” - though lots of blends are sold that way.

Welp! I have a new video project for later.


Edit: Update responsive to @anaolivetree;

These are indeed not the same, similar as they appear. Here is a link to another thread where I go into detail about that:

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Dang. Per-key flex cuts. I’m guessing this would totally eliminate keypresss from resonating across the board while sort of standardizing the sound of each key, like how center keys sound a bit more clacky than those near the mods.

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They do look similar, the spacebar isn’t the same as the ergonomic CXA spacebar and print-screen/scroll-lock/pause-break have different legends

I found a real picture of one of the sets

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What keyboard is that for?

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It’s for the Chaosera EAU 75. It’s that board with the F-row blocker magnet thing. The weird thing is when :3ildcat did his build it was a different hotswap PCB. Then DBOKEY did his build, but that PCB had the per-key flex cuts. Idk which one you get or what.

Chaosera EAU Build - YouTube (original build)
EAU 75% - YouTube (DBOKEY)

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Aside from the identical stems and mostly identical legends it is also a dead giveaway that these are CXA clones, because they include minivan 40% compatibility in the base kits, just like CXA. Almost no Aliexpress kits have this.

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Ugg north facing cut outs :stuck_out_tongue:

j/k that is pretty wild.

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I noticed that too. Then thought it must be a constraint of the flex cut design.

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The seller Keep Mive on AliExpress is having a sale; nothing crazy but you can get a modest discount on some Outemus:

The “Panda” Outemus don’t look that great color wise IMO, but the performance is pretty killer for > $0.25 each. Same for the silents; the Peach is something like a shorter travel Bobagum, and the Lime is almost like a silenced Kangaroo - short bump at the top.

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Alright one more - I actually saw these on Ali but couldn’t find much info there - turns out Divinikey has them, too, and a lot more info on their sales page:

In this case, “semi-silent” means dampened on the up-stroke, not the down-stroke. They’re made by JWK of course, but compared with existing JWK silents, this is all new tooling. Another neat thing; if you look closely at the top housing, you’ll see an extra set of rails on the contact side supporting the stem, helping with travel stability.

I know what they’re getting at with “semi-silent” - though that’s probably not a great descriptor for English speakers - these are not going to be quiet, at all - they’re long-pole linears - but they do have a silenced top-out - so if you want your clacks to be all about that long pole, these might be the way.

So far I’ve tried two samples of JWK’s “boxed” stem switches, and dang if I’m not impressed with them. The first few rounds of JWICK switches might have been budget-oriented, but some of this latest wave cost a lot more - and also have the quality to back that up. Yep. Gonna have to try these.


Edit: if you have any TTC silents laying around, you can put together a similarly-styled switch by putting those stems in any normal housing. TTC uses silicone plugs in the bottom of their housings to silence the downstroke - which also means the stems only have pads on the top. Using a regular stem in a TTC silent housing will give you something much like their own Bluish White or Brother; a switch with only a dampened bottom-out.

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definitely let us know what you think of them!

So it’s like a TTC Bluish White silent without the bottom damper. :thinking:

Or the opposite of TTC bluish(non silent). TTC bluish’s top-out sounds annoy me. I actually may like this better.

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But the silent Bluish White have the upstroke damper

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Huh that is kind of interesting. Like a reverse TCC Blueish White.

EDIT: Wrote this before I saw everyone else posting the same thing :joy: Guess I need to complete the scroll next time!

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Yeah the regular bluish white I meant. I have only tried the non-silent variant.