Would be so awesome if you could cover the most important factors (to me at least):
Wobble compared to novatouch slider+housing, with measurements: niz housing inner hole diameter +slider exterior diameter, and also the same for nova, to know the tolerances for each slider+housing
Smoothness compared to Novatouch
If the new sliders align properly in their housings
Can we put the niz housings + stems in topre keyboards or novatouch to make them usable again ? ex: sacrificed novatouch for sliders, brought back to life with a pack of new niz sliders + stems
Bonus: Video tutorial / experiment if it works to put a Costar/ Cherry plate stabilizer (Spacebar first, and then mods) on a novatouch/hhkb/other topre boards.
Ah, yeah, I know a number of higher profile makers in the community who would love work with Niz to make EC boards if they would work with us. Pass it along if you have an opportunity.
I have notified the author about it. I am not sure if they have a rep that is able to communicate fluently in English with you guys or do they have the intention to collaborate but let’s see how it goes.
Author just told me that he is willing to sell Niz overseas but since they already have reps in several locations outside of China, all have to be done through those reps. He preferred makers/authors in community to purchase fully assembled directly from reps and tear them apart to make metal mods or whatever they want. Niz is willing to provide maintenance support and the parts can be sourced directly from Niz at cost in case repair is needed.
Above is merely a rough translation and I hope the idea can be successfully conveyed.
IMHO, since Niz retails for less than $80 in China, there is a lot room of profit despite the tax and shipping. Shipping the pcb is easy but not so for other parts. I guess inconvenience could be the primary hurdle in this case. Things are different with Niz from other makers because they prefer to deal with re-sellers to instead of directly with customers, similar to other Chinese mech-keebs brands you might have seen on Amazon.
The author himself is kinda geeky, just want to keep doing his R&D and let the re-sellers to deal with everything else so it wasn’t too surprising to me.
Note: I am no expert about ec keeb so this is again a rough translation. I have pasted the his words so you guys can help me improve the translation if possible.
New versions: water-proof 87&108 are now listed , atom66, micro82, micro84 will be completed by the end of this month; new versions are using new sliders and housings; the accuracy is improved so that they are not longer 100% fit with previous NIZ models and THEY MIGHT INCREASE THE WOBBLE; the square hole (i dunno what it is because i never opened a Niz before) has a size of 14.07±0.02 (i dunno about the unit) and the thickness of the plate is 1.45±0.02; you can measure them to see if the housings and sliders can fit.
Original text: 新品的话，已经上架的是新防水87和108，本月底有atom66，micro82，micro84会完成，连接里面的评论看了下，新的系列产品都是用的新底座和推杆，主要提高了模具精度，如果用的老的niz键盘上，可能会增加晃动，如果用到realforce键盘上，也不一定完美适配，需要自行调整下，最新的niz的金属板方孔尺寸是14.07±0.02 ,金属板板厚1.45±0.02，可以自行测量下rf的尺寸与厚度，自行判断是否完美兼容
Based on the price point and the above comments I feel like there is a lot of opportunity here, at the very least Niz seems more responsive to the community than Topre ever have been.
Just adding some additional notes to the conversation after Nebulant pointed me to this post.
The board above is mounted with the NIZ housings and NIZ sliders on all the 1u keys. I don’t seem to have a noticeable wobble or alignment issues when using the NIZ housing and stem combo. I stuck two pieces of electrical tape to both sides of the housings before mounting them to lock them in place, so now there’s no horizontal play at all.
I had some NT mounted too to test. Honestly, compared to NT sliders in stock housings, I think these NIZ MX sliders and housings feel really good if not better but only when you use them together.
I would love to see some pictures of your solution for the housing movement if possible. I haven’t pulled the trigger on these yet, but I’m really tempted to do so before I move my Realforce into a Norbaforce housing.
I’m also curious what sort of effect those silencing rings have on tactility. They look a bit thick.
For me, they reduced tactility slight due to starting just into the bump.
When I get my housings back I am going to install them in a full sized realforce without padding the sides, I feel as if the pressure on the plate from the PCB should keep things from moving around without laterally pushing on them quite hard.
I stuck two layers of electrical tape to both sides of the housing just to test the fit. And that added just enough padding that I could still slide the housing back into the plate without any problems and the housings are locked in place and centred so I didn’t bother with anything fancier. Probably one of the easiest mods you can do, it’ll just take a bit of time (I did about 70 housings while watching Netflix for two hours).
Are the Axiom 3d printed spacebar stabs the best solution to pair with MX-compatible sliders at the moment? That’s pretty much the last thing between me and buying the Niz switches
