Wild! I hadn’t heard of the Silent Gray until you mentioned it.
Guess it’s regular OUTEMU and not part of the custom line. Supposedly one of the cheapest silent switches.
Now I feel as if I have to try some! Apparently, lubed Silent Gray is about as quiet as unlubed U4. [Come on Gazzew, do your own take on Silent Gray in a Boba-ish housing.]
Seems like the Boba’s are really well received but I also find it a bit of an oxymoron in how its tactile yet mushy in feel. I guess mushy has always carried a negative connotation so maybe in this case its just a softer feel? I only have pandas and zilent 2s for reference, are bobas significantly different? Seems like its very tactile but delivers it in a D shape more than a P. Would y’all choose them over the shrimps?
I’d say that’s an accurate description; the dampeners are soft and the bump is big and round. For my personal tastes the U4’s bump is a little big and I’d like a little more crispness, but so far they’re still my favorite silent tactile.
Got it, so because of the D shape, you’d say its like a big smooth bump that is distinctly different from the classic p shape where it basically functions as a linear after the bump is cleared?
Yeah, pretty much. There might be some measurable travel after the bump, but the feel is pretty much all bump unless you are purposefully pushing the key slowly.
Edit; here’s a force-curve graph that Pylon made:
Looks like there might be like half a millimeter of linear weight increase after the bump is over, but I never feel that when actually typing - it just feels like the bottom of said bump.
Gonna have to give these a try! Thanks, now time to find a vendor that sells them in smaller quantities.
Do you know where I can get silent tactile stems?
You might have to get them from Gazzew himself - I haven’t seen them on vendor sites for a while but he tends to keep them on hand and it looks like he has some now. I think he’s catching up from a backlog of orders but he’s good about that kind of thing. You can check this reddit post to see what he has in stock - might have to scroll down a bit but you’ll see the silent tactiles, and there’s info on the page about how to place an order with him.
Much appreciated.
Good housings for the Silent Tactiles are MX Clears and TTC Gold Brown V2.
If you need more tactility, Huano Banana housings can be used, and they are cheap.
You can use the Boba housing with Silent Tactile, but it’s best to use at least 55 G 15mm or 60 G 14mm springs, at least. Gazzew says 68 G for full-tactility in Boba housing.
Thanks for the info.
Thoughts on Polia Housings? I have a couple left over from my Polia Panda build.
I tried Polia housings … and they are kind of middling.
I find that there is a bit of shuffling noise, possibly from the tactile leaf, when using the Polia housings. It’s not that Silent Sky in Polia is loud per se, but it’s not as quiet as the other housings I mentioned.
Maybe I just didn’t lube it enough, though.
At least one other person here has used Silent Sky with Polia, seemingly more successfully, so you may wish to perform a search on that.
Thanks. I will search.
I suspect I’ll still end up getting the Silent tactile stems but at least now I have a good idea of what to expect.
A quick note; the Silent Tactile stems sold by Gazzew are also sold by the MFR Outemu as “Silent Sky” and “Silent Forest” in complete switches, so you might see them referred to by those names. As far as I’m aware though, all three are the same stem.
Different versions are out in the wild, but those are iterative; v1, v2, v2.2, etc - pretty much any out there for sale will be the newest iteration unless you buy them used / on the aftermarket.
Yes. OUTEMU marketed them as “Silent Sky” and “Silent Forest” when it came in complete switches [the ones with the teal housings].
But the internal Gazzew name for them seems to be “Silent Tactile,” which refers to the P-shaped bump stem intended to mimic an Ergo Clear.
This is distinct from the “U4” stem, with the large D-shaped bump, that forms part of the U4 Boba switch.
“Silent Tactile” was never sold in a Boba housing, to my knowledge. Although they are compatible. If you buy ST stems from Gazzew, they should be the newest version. The OUTEMU Silent Sky / Forest was actually taken out of production some time ago, so only the latest stems remain, if that.
Just installed the 65g Boba U4s and they are phenomenal. No need to lube and they’re way better than zilents imo.
65G? I assume you are using custom springs?
65 G TX is honestly a good weight for the Boba U4s. Probably doesn’t even need lube.
If U4 had been available in 2019, I guess the retrofit of my Leopold [with Zilents] would have gone even better, and maybe I wouldn’t have gotten into customs.
Right now, I got a decent price on some Aliaz and am planning to build 52-55 G Silent Skyliaz, which is nice if you want something lighter than U4.
The limited edition black gazzew’s boba u4’s came standard with 65g springs.
I got the black u4 with 55g and i actually prefer it over the 62g version. The 62g ones feels a lot heavier than other 62g-ish tactile switches i own and my fingers did get tired after a long coding/typing session.
It’s true. 55 G wasn’t available at the time, so I ordered 62 G, but that’s a heavy 62 G spring.
I always end up rebuilding it as 55 G [Spirit or OUTEMU], or 57 G Long, which is a good weight for them.