Just wanted to get some chat going about these, and to share some of my initial impressions from my first day of messing around with them.
Details
The stem
(sorry for the potato pic, I just moved and space is less than ideal right now, especially lighting-wise)
The stem is, obviously, a major focal point of this switch in particular. It’s a really radical departure from tactile stems I’m used to looking at; the bump near the start of the legs is fairly small, then there is a long flat space before a dramatic falloff (we’ll get to that later; it’s both fascinating and frustrating). Overall, the leg design on these is really aggressive compared to the more naturalistic curves we see on other stems. This contributes to an interesting feeling: the downstroke bump is relatively small, actuation happens more reliably during the falloff from the bump (it is harder, but not impossible, for me to overcome the bump on these and reach that falloff point without actuating the switch than it is with Zeal switches or Holy Pandas), and the upstroke is curiously tactile. All of these little events are sharp and crisp, there’s almost no roundness to the tactility.
The post on the bottom is not quite as long as the one on Halo stems, but it definitely is a longer post than on Zealios.
The springs
The spring in these is relatively heavy: stock these come with an 80g bottom-out, and I wouldn’t recommend going much lighter than that; spring-swapping with 6Xg linear springs I’ve found that in some of these I can pretty reliably get the switch “stuck” in its depressed state. With progressives in the 6Xg range I haven’t found an option that doesn’t reliably get stuck down there even without any attempt on my part to make this happen.
Oof. Considering the stock spring is very pingy, this hurts.
When the lighter springs do return, the upstroke tactility is enormous and punchy as heck. It kinda rules, but I suspect it’d create trouble on certain stabilized keys.
The housing
Not being a linears person, this is my first time playing with the creams’ housings. They’re a bit scratchy, initially? I’ve yet to lube them, but it’s my understanding there’s a “break-in” period I should put these through before actually lubing them, so perhaps I should hold off on that? Pleasant sound, although a bit higher-pitched than my panda housings. Opens real easy, though there’s some slight E/W wobble between the stem and housing compared to what I’m used to.
tl;dr
An interesting switch with a pleasant sound, and a really interesting stem that unfortunately seems to be incompatible with lighter springs. Might be a great tactile option for heavy-handed typists.
I’ll keep updating this thread as I play around with frankenswitches using this stem.
