I was surprised to see the Durock Light Tactile coming with 67 G springs. That’s fairly heavy on an Ergo Clear / Zealio V1 stem, never mind Browns.
I rarely see anyone building Browns above 63.5 or 65 G, and even that is rare.
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Can you tell us how operation is once cleaned and lubed properly?
I have Pewters, and I find them a little sluggish, or sticking on the mid-bump, and heavier to actuate than they should be [heavier than SP Star Meteor].
What kind of lubing would you recommend for these to get good results? A switch like these should be light + poppy, very frictionless and the bump should be apparent. This being Durock/JWK, is there a way to achieve that ‘skating’ frictionless feel that Alpacas have?
Hmm, wondering if it is just the weighting like @smshark said or if there is actual differences in yours? Please upload some photos of your pewter & light stems when you can. I wouldn’t be surprised if Durock is churning out so many switches that they could be having consistency issues. Comparing the stems of my batch & yours could confirm or deny that. I can get better pics of mine if needed also.
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Will definitely let you know when I clean & lube some of the lights up. My Pewters don’t feel sluggish, although they do have a pretty light spring so it might be me more getting used to lighter springs. I went with 3204 on the stems/housings & 105 on the springs of my Pewters & the still feel fairly poppy to me. I also agree agree on the stock spring in the lights. Probably went with it cause it was the favored weighting for Zeal V1s, but definitely too much for what they are IMO as well.
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I’ve been musing about this, and I think that Durock/JWK needs a “light-medium tactile.” Something inspired by Zealio V1 / Everglide Jade, in which the tactile bump is smaller than Medium Tactile, but larger and more noticeable than Light Tactile.
It would be optimized for weights of 60 - 65 G instead of 58.5 G or 63.5 - 67 G, placing it squarely between Light and Medium, and would also make more sense at 67 than Light Tactile.
It’s okay to play around with bump location in such a switch. It should be more pronounced than Light Tactile, by making it sharper or larger / rounder, while still being smooth.
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That would be nice, but wouldn’t that be the Rara stem from what I understand? I haven’t tried any of them yet, but those are often described as a slightly more aggressive ergo clear. I agree either way, Durock/JWK could get a huge boon from switch modders if they really get into making a bunch of different shaped tactile stems. From changing the starting point to size of the bump, more or less aggressive leaves, extended or non extended stems, etc. etc, the possibilities are pretty wide. Which could basically get MX tactiles to a point that anyone other linear or clicky purists can find a tactile they really like cause all the parts are from the same manu!
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The Rara is one of the “Medium Tactile” that they mentioned directly.
Part of me wonders if the T1 or Medium Tactile stems in a Light Tactile housing would accomplish the desired effect (the former for a rounder bump, the latter for a sharper bump).
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Yeah, Everglide Jade is kinda like a Medium Tactile stem in a near-linear housing.
Medium tactile in a lighter housing might resemble Everglide Jade, maybe. But I wouldn’t mind an intermediate stem. They could call it “Ergo Tactile” or something.
I find that putting heavy tactile stems like U4 and U4T into less tactile housings to still have a huge bump, although reduced. The profile is still the top-heavy T1-style.
So maybe putting the light tactile stem into a more tactile housing would create an intermediate tactile. Putting Clear-like stems and even Browns into T1 and YOK Panda housings often leads to fun results.
The Rara stem is the same as the Medium Tactile. It’s just that Rara was maybe the first Medium Tactile to arrive here, before it was even called that, so we know the Rara name.
Everglide Jade stem is said to be slightly different [maybe different manufacturer, and it’s not available for JWK housings in the “Twilight” switch like the Rara stem is].
Since Rara is Medium Tactile, I was thinking of something intermediate between Light Tactile and Rara.
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I’ve been finding it useful to put the Light Tactile [specifically Pewter] stems in Medium Tactile [specifically Taro Ball] housings.
The Pewter housing is scuffed, in my opinion. Weak tactile leaf, bad factory lube. In a properly-lubed Taro Ball, with a ~57 G spring, the Pewter stem feels smoother and more tactile.
Not sure which factors are causing this, exactly. But the Medium Tactile housings are more fun with other stems than Medium Tactile.
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The weak tactile leaf is for it being a light tactile. I heard that JWK just changing the leaf strength for different tactility. I am not sure is Pewter stem is a new one rather than being T1 or Rara like. If this is a new stem design, it explains why it make such a difference in the Taro ball housing
They are absolutely three different stems. (These are Pewter, Dragonfruit, and T1)
The Pewter/Light Tactile stem is similar to the Rara stem, but its bump deviates much less. The Rara and Pewter stems both have bumps situated a bit nearer to the cross of the stem (so, later in the press) than the T1 stem.
The leaf is also different, at the very least between T1s and the other two types of JWK tactiles. But it is not the only difference.
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Now I got a reason to buy Pewter. Boba with Pewter might be a good choice?
I think I’ve tested it, but I’m not sure.
Boba switch will almost certainly amplify the tactile deviation from linear on the tactile leg.
The lighter Durock tactiles all kind of feel like scaled-down T1s to me. There’s hardly any pre-travel in their Medium or Light Tactile stems, the bump is near the top and slams down fairly hard once enough momentum is achieved.
As some others have said, it kind of feels like a step backwards from Cherry. Cherry gives you pre-travel, pre-sensing the bump, then a fairly distinct bump, and somewhat linear at the bottom. Durocks are more of a “P” bump or even “D” bump, which may not be ideal in a lighter tactile.
If I can dig out another Pewter stem today, I’ll see how it works in a Boba housing.
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Okay, so I tried putting a Pewter stem in a Boba housing.
Used the white U4 Boba housing, including the tight-top. 62 G TX 14mm spring.
This combination works with the Gateron Orange [Brown] stem. However, the Pewter stem got stuck in the Boba tight-top in two separate attempts.
A heavier spring may help it here, but I think that the Everglide Jade stem was working in that combination at 62 G.
I tried it also in an OUTEMU Blue Ice housing with Boba tight-top, same spring, but it still got stuck in a separate tight-top. If you are trying to build with Boba housings, you might want to avoid the tight-tops with Pewter.
Pewter did work inside an SP Star Meteor Orange, which was more of a side-grade.
And it does work inside a regular Durock T1 housing with a 62 G TX spring. It is a fairly poppy switch, although I still prefer Pewter stem inside Taro Ball housing at 57 G.
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Yeah, the best result for me is still the Pewter stem in Taro Ball at 57 G.
I wonder if this is close to what OxBlood would have been.
I don’t know if there’s been any progress on that IC, but OxBlood was envisioned as a Light Tactile stem in a good Durock housing with ~55 G spring + higher option.
I kind of achieved that with Pewter in Taro Ball 57G, but that’s expensive.
The problem with OxBlood for me are the allusions to vintage Browns, which this certainly isn’t. Different stem shape, surely.
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It seems to me that the easiest way to achieve what the Oxblood would be (although not necessarily what you want or might imagine it would be, since I cannot speak to that which is in your heart) is to buy Durock Light Tactiles (which are promoted using the same stem image as was shared in the Oxblood thread on GH) and spring-swap them with the advertised 16mm 62g TX springs that were to be installed in them. It wouldn’t be the same housing/stem color, but the overall switch would be otherwise identical based on all available knowledge and much less expensive than buying multiple switches to franken together.
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Yes, and I think OxBlood was going for a nylon bottom. So that might mean using a Cherry bottom [getting closer to those vints, lol]
The 16mm 62 G TX was the main option, but they were also looking at 55 G TX as a secondary option.
[I would have gone for the 55 G, 62 G Long hadn’t even been tested with the switch yet].
Honestly, 60 G Long should be more than enough to operate the switch. I find that even 62 G 14mm can be a little stiff when making light tactiles.
But yes, Light Tactile stem in Durock housing [hopefully nylon bottom] at 55 or 62 TX is closest possible to Oxblood. Which would have come unlubed.
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Nylon bottom is JWK/Durock standard and the Light Tactiles are advertised as having them, so there should be no swapping necessary other than the spring.
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Looks like Oxblood may be arriving soon:
Dalexsnail intends to resume the process after GMK Slasher is announced.
Personally, I think this is a chance for Durock Light Tactile to get it right.
Oxblood was supposed to be our introduction to this switch in the West, it was advertised through Oxblood before most people heard of it elsewhere. Then it got delayed for whatever reason, and Pewter appeared out of nowhere to be advertised on a Youtube channel. It was expensive and hard to get [OOS quickly] and the first batch was horribly overlubed.
Durock Light Tactile apparently had a similar problem with the early batches, according to reviews I’ve seen on AliExpress. One of the selling points of Oxblood was that it would be unlubed. And come with TX springs. That’s probably a far sight better for most enthusiasts than Durock springs and gobs of factory oil.
So they pooched it by releasing Pewter and overlubed Light Tactile first, IMHO. Same problem with Durock Medium Tactile: RARA V2 and Shogoki were supposed to arrive months before they did, heralding the new RARA designs. Instead, a whole bunch of obscure Medium Tactile recolours appeared [often first on Youtube] in the form of Penguin, Taro Ball, Mode Signal, Cerulean, etc…
JWK/Durock could really have handled these rollouts better IMHO.
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