Kailh Deep Sea - anyone have an opinion?

Quick update on the midnight switches:

Be careful. I cracked a few GMK caps on these before I gave up and swapped to PBT. I wouldn’t recommend mounting GMK on these.

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Hey guys how would these stack against modded Silent Alpacas (Which are JWK clones?) (filmed, carefully lubbed with 205 without touching the dampening material) ?

EDIT : i am a little worried about the wobble too, some reviews on Aliexpress said the wobble more than filmed JWKs

And does any Box Spring fit on the Deep Sea fine? anyone spring swapped them?

Haven’t spring swapped but I’m not a fan of JWK silent switches at all. I have some serikos that I’ve lubed and filmed. They’re just not pleasant for me. Maybe too mushy?

Silent Inks are firmer but have louder “thud” bottom out sound than Boba Gums or Silent Durocks.
My BOX Silent Pink (edit: sample) is also firm but it has a weird line on the stem that causes binding, unsure if that’s a dud or a defect of the line.

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Yes - I haven’t actually swapped one but I can confirm the stem and housing are meant for the same diameter springs as other Box switches.

Generally, I’d say Box silents are the least mushy but also on the loud end of dampened switches. These Deep Seas might be on-par with a typical dome board in terms of noise, which is to say plenty audible but far from loud.

I haven’t found them particularly wobbly but all Box switches seem to have at least a slightly less consistent resting position than other MX-compatible designs, and these are no exception. I haven’t had any binding with mine though.

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Hey,

Those Kailh Midnight switches are actually pretty decent!

Mine finally arrived today, and now I have a lineup of Midnight, Deep Sea, and Fried Egg.

Fried Egg is the mushiest and softest of them all. Despite that, I kind of like it. It’s okay on a generic alum. plate TKL, but even nicer on a dampened Aurora. Easy to bottom-out, but not harsh.

Deep Sea is stiffer than Fried Egg. Unlike Fried Egg, it doesn’t sound as if it needs to be user-lubricated. [Fried Egg has a bit of shuffling.] It’s crisp, almost feels like a tactile instead of a linear. But there’s no bump.

Then there’s Midnight. I’m using KBDFans PBT on all of these. Midnight is somewhat crisp, no scratch. The tactility is slightly less than what I remember from Kailh BOX Silent Brown. It’s a medium tactile, whereas I would call Silent Brown a medium-heavy.

It kind of reminds me of TTC Pale Blue in overall feel, but Midnight has a cruder bump whereas Pale Blue might have been crisper and sharper, yet more indistinct in location.

Anyway, I think Kailh Midnight could be a viable out-of-box tactile switch. However, it is loud, about as loud as those cheap $10 Microsoft black rubber-dome keyboards that come with OEM computers. The Deep Sea is somewhat quieter, like a conventional office rubber-dome. And Fried Egg could be the quietest, but there’s squeaking/shuffling from the spring or dampening, so that has to be addressed.

Not sure what I’d recommend for a ready-made office keyboard, I’d have to think about it and test the switches more. All of these Kailh ‘silents’ are on the loud end of silent, whereas Boba types are the quietest stock.

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@SwitchCaptain Any plans to carry the new deep sea pro switches? Just saw them announced on twitter. I don’t know what makes them different.
Kailh says they are “quieter”

The v3 version you sell are absolutely my one of my favorite silent switches.

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So we got in touch with Kailh about these. We were told that they were released to keyboard manufacturers first but we’re getting samples currently to try out. @pixelpusher feel free to DM us and would be happy to share some of them when they arrive.

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I’ve recently embarked on wanting to try some silent linears. I’ve ordered 110 of the new Kahil Deep Sea Silent Switch Pro Islet (what a mouthful), so hopefully I’ll get my hands on them in the next fortnight.

Has anyone tried these? Apparently they’re more silent and factory lubed, I’m not sure if that in comparison to the Deep V3’s - details are pretty sparse.

Kahil has a quick typing sound test on YouTube of them, though I’m unable to copy a link here.

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Oh neat - looks like an all-clear version, like the Jellyfishes but with the silenced components. Where did you find them?

I think the clear Kailhs use Nylon stems, which I’ve heard are slightly less smooth than POM equivalents, but not by much. For many users the trade-off of a clear stem can be worth it for the aesthetics.

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Sorry for the necro.

But do you think one could increase the travel by removing the rubber pad on the bottom? Would that interfere with the stem length and overall bottom-out balance?

Just asking because the Deep Seas are cheaper than the Midnights in my region. And I can probably mod the DS to behave similar to the MN. Not sure about the stem length interference, though.

I would have to find my extras and try it to know for sure, but I assume that would indeed increase the travel distance. Of course, they would no longer be silent on the downstroke.

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Thanks. I would really love to know. :slight_smile:
Also about possible issues related to the pole length … which might hit much earlier than the stem case after removing the rubber pads?

My Findings:

  • Stock 3.5mm
  • Bottom dampeners removed: 3.62mm
  • Top and bottom dampeners removed: 3.8mm

Here’s the calipers zeroed out just at the point of contact.

Then I depress the stem as far as possible

So the default travel is roughly 3.5mm

Here is the switch disassembled

Here I remove the rubber part from the bottom


Here’s the result

3.62mm is indeed more travel

Now for the top housing dampeners

You get a full 3.8mm now with no dampening.

I hope that’s helpful.

This doesn’t seem practical unless you’re getting the switches for very cheap though.

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Wow, thank you very much!

May I ask how it feels to type on with only the bottom pad removed?

Not not bad, honestly. Similar to the stock feel but just a light clack where there used to be a thud

Would you recommend it over the U4TX? :smile:

Deep Sea is linear whereas the U4Tx is tactical. I prefer linear, so yes, I do like the Kailh switch more.

Oh, ok. Thought you had the tactile version (Tactile Whale > Tactile Islet).

I see. I would probably still prefer the Kailh switch even if it was tactile. The U4Tx are rather strange switches. I took them out of my keyboard after only 2 days. Maybe I need to give them another try, but I definitely didn’t’ like them very much.