Has anyone heard of or seen " TriboSys™ KSL- Spray Oil"?
I was emailing Miller-Stephenson with some questions surrounding Krytox 205g0 and was referred to the website KeySwitchLube.com for purchasing as an individual. Naturally I went through the site seeing how pricing was hoping it may be a savings (it’s not, lol) but while I was there I noticed what is claimed to be Krytox/Tribosys in spray form.
A quick search here and on GeekHack resulted in 0 results…so naturally I bought a bottle despite it not even listing the size I’m getting but we all know the importance of keyboard science, what could I do…it’s bigger than me. Heck, it’s bigger than all of us.
Watcha think? Heard of it? Teach me something and in the meantime I’ll work extra hard to cover the just shy of $17 shipping on a $20 can of spray lube and update the post with pics, size and whatever else the Keyboard Lords and my fellow KeebTalkians demand.
i mean, if you spray it into your switch, yeah. That would be terrible. But what about setting out some springs and giving them a spray coating? Might be aight.
This is great! You could 3D print a holder for a bunch of stems, and just spray! Would definitely cut down on time, and probably be more consistent as well.
I agree - I can think of several things that potentially could be great if it works in a way that’s consistent on the spray formation and consistency etc.
How about someone who isn’t going to take their Topre/Niz apart for whatever reason but would like to lubricate and see some type of improvement…now they could just pop off their keycaps, get the can back at the proper distance and spray evenly across the sliders. Depress a few times and repeat. Replace keycaps and get back to typing with some lubed sliders.
Sure it’s not the best that can be done but it’s better than nothing (given they don’t spray the board to death and cause issues). At minimum it’s creating options for more people at more level of interest or skill to get deeper into the keeb community and that’s good for all of us.
you read my mind. I mean how is JWK factory making the moves that they are making. The factory lube game is changing and something’s changing it and I don’t think it’s off duty knitters lubing switches with precision accuracy for days at a time…
In my mind I see a tray of stems and housings getting a fine mist of lubricant from a professional manufacturing nozzle at well controlled PSI etc. and this is a mobile version of that…
Besides, I’m fairly certain we’re breaking new keeb ground with this being discussed here as well…there’s a chance that no one else is even aware that this exists (not literally but if you can find a post or article on it link it here). I only stumbled across it being the super chemical engineering type nerd who was interacting with Miller Stephenson about compounds and it they mentioned it as being basically their company store is what was implied in our back and forth emails.
wow, ok there bud. I’m not attacking your way of life, or the particular molecules of lube used in a switch, but rather that the act of spray lubing switches has a substantial potential to damage your switches, often permenantly. I wont even bother replying to your rather tasteless comments as to my intelligence, I think my profile and standing in keebtalk speak for themselves to disprove that.
I’ve removed the flagged comments rather than attempting to edit them in any way and additionally edited anything else that could have been taken as a reference to yourself or your comment despite my dislike for your reply.
I was not trying to be a bully, in fact I felt it was the other way around and that’s why I replied so strongly.
Being told it was bad, followed by being told to not waste my money did feel rather rude, particularly it was in spite of the fact that I clearly stated the motive behind purchasing as well as addressing pricing and saying it was already ordered. I’m sorry you felt your intelligence was questioned… hopefully you can see where I took your comment as doing just that to me.
*hope we can just move on and let this thread be on the new Krytox option that is apparently available.
Spray lube is definitely something I would avoid if at all possible. At the best it will do a poor job lubing whatever you want to lube, and at worst (more likely) you will end up with a nasty greasy keyboard and mucked up PCB.
I’m sorry, but that sounds like a not good idea to me, now the whole front of the keyboard is going to be greasy and slippery and the bottom of the keycaps are going to get greasy and gross too. This stuff is not super easy to clean off.
Factory lubed switches have been around forever, JWK is hardly the first one to do it. Factory lubing historically has been notoriously inconsistent and something to avoid if possible, generally, although I will say I don’t know much about JWK factory lubed ones as I have tried to avoid their switches in general. I have always had much better luck lubing the switches myself.
If you use the handy search function up in the top right you can find a handful of times it has come up on here.
Lack of precision & amount control is why spray lubing a switch while it’s still all together is a bad thing. If you get lube in between the leaves where they contact each other it can cause chattering, make the switch actuate inconsistently, or make it stop actuating all together. Then you really can’t control the amount of lube you’re putting on each switch with a spraycan so the switches will be inconsistently lubed causing differences in feel from one switch to another.
I was contemplating making a video for April Fool’s Day, lubing switches with Olive Oil using a turkey syringe (normally used to inject saline or flavoring into the meat).
Too many people would be dumb enough to try it, and then I’d feel bad.
@sirpeebs I applaud your bravery, there are few fans of spray lubing here. But there are some applications where I could see it being useful. I did it once before and the results were terrible if you know what properly lubed switches feel like. If you’ve never had the real deal, some people might like it.
I actually lube HHKB without taking it apart, but not with a spray. I spread 205g0 on the shafts thinly and it works great - doesn’t change the typing experience, just gets rid of the scratchy feeling.
This works completely on my HHKBs, but not so great on Leopold FC660C. There is still some scratchiness on the silent FC660C I have on stabilized keys. I guess I would have to take it apart to properly lube the stabs. And yeah, I’m not going to do that unless I decide to migrate it into some other case (maybe future Norbauer runs?).
please don’t waste your money