Not sure, I would assume it was on purpose. Could also be this PCB I am trying it out on.
Here are some measurements I will add to the album. (My Caliper is an inexpensive one from Home depot so it isn’t the best quality but gets the job done I would give a +/- of 0.05mm just to be safe)
Durok v2:
Bottom Housing against PCB: 19.09mm x 7.22mm
Top Housing that goes into plate: 11mm x 7.22mm
Wire: 1.57mm
Staebie:
Bottom Housing against PCB: 19.02mm x 6.75mm
Top Housing that goes into plate: 10.8mm x 6.75mm
Wire: 1.60mm
It was suggested to start with no lube… they definately improve with lube IMO. One I have has a tick. I need to disassemble the check the wire and or try another wire. The other one I am working with is perfect (I used a normal amount of 205g0 and an irresponsible amount of dielectric).
I will work on dialing it in on the lube and I think they will be great.
Oooh I should add my 2c here since I was an early tester of these stabilizers.
As usual check your wire balance, though they should be pretty good with the containers they come in. Because the tolerances are tight, they are unforgiving with warped spacebars, so get them as straight as you can with a hairdryer if you know your spacebar isn’t the greatest… Now we lube them:
I found the best method was to just use 205g0 for everything, thicker lubes can make them sluggish. I lubed the housing and stems as I usually would, and put a dab on the hooks that hold the wire. Installed the wire dry then filled the bottom side of the stems with 205g0 using a brush, a syringe would be easier though. I then installed using the insulating washers that come with the kit, without the washers they can wobble a little bit.
None of the stabilizers I have done in this way tick, even the ones on my daily driver that were installed 3 months ago and used for around 2.5 of those months! I even took to the spacebar with a massage gun for 10 minutes total, and they still didn’t tick.
Follow the video below but substitute the dielectric grease with Krytox, and if you must; the syringe for a small brush.
(yes the video is Durocks, but the same method is perfect for staebies)
Finished building up my daily driver with Staebies. For lubing went a heavy on dielectric (extra were the wire clips in and and in the back of the insert along with a normal amount on the wire itself). On the insert a medium coat of 205g0. Then spamming the stabs removing the keycap and wiping any excess lube off. Only one stab needed to go in with a Q-tip to remove excess lube to get rid of a little sluggishness and bring back the switch characteristics. They are perfect no ticks extremely little wobble for a stab couldn’t be any happier with them. (I could have probably gone lighter with the lube but since they came out so good I didn’t feel the need to try a bunch of different things)
The Treehouse discord AEBoards channel has been active at receiving feedback asking questions and trying to help or at least understand why certain things came up.
Yeah, they’re just normal durock v2 but all-black. I just thought it was interesting that they started offering that color way almost immediately after staebies started gaining a foothold in the hobby.
Agreed. After giving these a fair shake, I’m not a fan. Although the housing tolerances and wire straightness are leagues above most, these aren’t for the novice or casual stab enthusiasts. Or maybe they’re just so different, my usual go-to process just fell short.
They absolutely engineered a way to eliminate stab ticking. The stem-to-wire tolerance rivals Zeal’s and the housing tolerance is so good, the stem doesn’t collide with the housing walls and even helps to reduce overall switch wobble in all directions. Brilliant.
But, because the tolerances are so tight, they’re scratchy. Gateron levels. When lubing, you will impact the speed and feel of key return if you don’t just chill out and use as little lube as mechanically possible.
For #uck sake, yup. I had this very annoying issue and had no patients by this point.
Oh gosh, then the keycaps. Yikes. Due to tolerances (again), if your keycap is seated off-center the stem will bind inside the housing even during centered keypresses. I must have reseated the Enter keycap four times before I got it right. Luckily, I was testing with a decent GMK set with above average straightness and can’t imagine going into this fight with a bent spacebar or something.
Regrettably I didn’t even get the fancy pants reusable packaging either. From the get-go, it was just an odd and uncomfortable install. I hope my experience was a fluke and everyone else loves them, they’re just not for me.
This what kept me from using the R1 nylon Staebies I got. I put them together without lube & tested them out on a spare PCB. I was definitely not happy with the scratchiness, but assumed it would go away with lubing. I didn’t even think about the tight tolerances not allowing you to use enough lube, but makes perfect sense to me. That’s why I talk up TX stabs & have decided they are my got to over V1 Durocks. The tolerances are tightened up compared to Cherry clip ins, but not to the point they affect the operation or what you can do to mod them. Then that doubleshot slider is the cherry on top IMHO. Makes the wire collisions inside the slider way more damped out than any other stab I’ve ever used.
I think Zamb & AE will get the Staebies to where they want them, but it looks like they still got work to do. Although TX managed to nail it on their first go & they should just get even better with revisions. So if you need them now I’d go TX over Staebies all day.
Words of wisdom good sir, words of wisdom. What’s your impression of C³ v3 stabs? I sort of compare all newcomers to these. It might be because those were the first stabs I was able to tune that resembled any level of “perfect” to me.
The C3 v3 stabs are pretty good IME. I have a few sets, but only used them on my T60. Although that is my hotswap tester board so I have used them a good bit. I’d definitely put them on par with Durocks, pre retolling GMK screw ins, the usual suspects for best stabs before TX & Staebies came out for sure! Maybe even a little bit better now that I really think of it, cause just a good lube & they worked great when I first built that setup. Then I haven’t had to refresh them as much Durocks, so they do got a slight edge on those others excluding TX I’d say.
Ironically I’ve found the best way to mitigate stabilzier rattle without going out of your way is to coincidently have the spacebar make the stab stem to glide on the stab housing not leaving it room to wiggle.
Adds just a tiny bit of resistance but almost completely removes the ticking, not heard on normal usage at least.
When reading about people’s stab problems makes me worried I just been lucky with C³v3 and cherry clip-in’s that turned out pretty much perfect with just lube.
