Short thread. Where can you buy authentic Invyr housing / Panda switches nowadays? They haven’t been on sale (from my knowledge) since 2016, and I think that more than one of us would like to get our hands on a set of switches. Thanks!
As far as I know, Drop owns the Invyr molds now or at least the rights to use them for production. YOK has their own version that the community seems to fully accept. There’s also the BSUN GSUS switches, which have only been made in small runs and are kind of hell to get your hands on (in my experience, although I’ve managed to accumulate a reasonable amount of them off mechmarket in the past few months out of sheer luck and determination)
So: either through Drop, through sources for YOKs (like Novelkeys), or on mechmarket/discords.
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This right here. After the original Invyr panda GB the molds were damaged, which is why they stopped being made and the aftermarket prices were going for >$5 per switch for OG pandas. Eventually Drop bought the molds and repaired them to make their official Holy Panda switches.
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The original Invyr Pandas are extinct. Those switches, and their molds, were owned by 27 of Mech27. At this point, he is AWOL, and the molds were bought and repaired by Drop. They are, at the moment, the closest we can get to those original pandas. YOK does a pretty damn good job of replicating the experience, and Gsus is also really good. You wouldnt be missing much by using a modern clone, as they are all nearly identical.
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This exactly^ I’ve tried OG Holy Pandas, Massdrop Holy Pandas, & Yok Holy Pandas. Feel wise there is no difference between any of them TBH. If you want to stay as close as possible to OG, like others have said, go with the Massdrop HPs as they are made with the same mould Invyrs were made with & say Invyr on the top housings.
Careful of the Drop Holy Pandas. Besides the hours of de-lubing and lubing, I’m now having random switch failures. I finally pulled them out of my daily driver keeb. Fellow community members have stated that other brands don’t have these issues - Yok Pandas, Trash Pandas, etc.
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YOK Trash Pandas do have issues, but it’s nothing you can’t fix with a screwdriver/tweezers, instead of needing a whole-ass ultrasonic cleaner.
Ah, well then. I’ll be doing that fix on the YOK purple Pandas I’ll be getting from NK tomorrow. Thanks!
Yeah the delubing was a pain in the ass, but thankfully the batch I put in my E6.5 has been solid so far. I’ll be pissed if the switches start dropping out on me cause I was gonna use Trash Pandas.
I have yet to have issues with stock yoks, purple trash yoks, or any combinations (5 total boards using various versions of the switches) I have made with them to date. I would say that if you plan on doing stem swapping you take care to not damage the leaves while you have the switches apart
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I also have this same issue with the recent MD HPs. I cleaned and built my e6.5 twice, tested all the diodes and resistors thinking it was something with the pcb. Not sure if MD will do anything about it since there isn’t a way to really prove it.