Cherry MX Brown “Hyperglide” edition arrived. Already low-pitched but looking forward to finding out what RO-59’d do to its acoustics. I’ll also have to do something horrible about its noisy contact leaf.
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(Mostly) Tactile Switch Day! Here are my impressions in the hand after tearing open a bunch of mail bags:
KFA Robin Linears - Keebsforall offers up batches of hand lubed switches at reasonable prices and these are incredible for the price.
Haimu Whisper Tactile - nice tactility and bounce. Might be the only silent switch I’ve ever liked. The designers gave it some extra upstroke power. Why not when the switch is silenced? This gives it some personality.
Wuque WS Heavy Tactile - great tactility these are a keeper.
Haimu Geon Tactile - light tactility - need more time with them. Meh first impression.
Gateron Baby Kangaroo - feels like Kailh Pro Purple but smoother and lighter - this is what every stock Gateron Brown should feel like.
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Got a batch of unlubed Vertex V1’s in. Out of the box, there is some spring ping, with a slight bit of scratch. I am going to run them through the ol’ Break-In Machine this weekend, and try to see what just bag lubing the springs will do as they sound and feel pretty good otherwise.
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Wow - those shots are amazing! WS should have them on their product website because they show the details so much better than their photos 
Have you tried them yet? Let us know how you like them when you do! (Mine are in the mail still, but I am excited to try them)
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CK x Haimu Pastel Peach arrived from CannonKeys.
- Smooth as expected for modern switches.
-
No spring pingI couldn’t hear it while testing on a board but I could hear faint spring ping when placed next to my ear. - No contact leaf rattle
- Not much wobble N/S to speak of. A tad more wobble E/W.
- Sound is nice and clacky but not distinct and squeaks on upstroke [1].
- One side of the stem has a blemish that cannot be removed and is present in all the switches I opened randomly so looks like a mold or manufacturing process issue. [2]
[1] Same kind of squeak I heard Gateron North Pole make.
[2] The blemish is a slight depression so it can be felt with fingernail but doesn’t affect the smoothness.
Conclusion: Pretty good for the price.
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I finally pulled the trigger and got myself some taiwan jet axis linears. They are surprisingly good. Both wobble and smoothness is better than you would expect from a more vintage switch, specially compared to some modern switches.
Also some 2 and 3 stage springs from taobao. Not really sure what brand they are, the listings didn’t really mention much other than the weight and length. They seem quite decent, though.
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So I ordered the CK x Haimu Pastel Mint tactile and I’m getting what could be considered a squeak as well.
I recorded a clip of this and added it to my post. Are you hearing the same thing I’m hearing (second half of the SoundCloud linked there)? Any idea if this is solvable? I’m noticing it on more and more of the Pastel Mint switches; it seems to be inconsistent until it’s very consistently squeaky/chirpy.
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The soundcloud link doesn’t work for me, says it’s been removed
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Doh. I swear I’ve internetted things before! It was a private track but I forgot to use the super secret private share URL and just pasted right from the browser address bar.
Thanks for the heads up! It’s fixed and now features the fancy embedded player.
Did you try lubing anything yet to see what might be the cause?
Not yet but mostly just due to lack of free time over the past week. The chirp/squeak I was hearing sounded so different than what I’ve heard in any of my other switches (about 20 sets and another 20 individual test switches) that I was curious if others had seen this issue.
It seems to be triggered by a couple hard bottom-outs in a row, particularly if off-center, but then seems to continue even under lighter presses. It will then go back to normal only to reappear again after a few more presses. I suspect the spring (22mm double-stage) is binding in some way, so I’m going to start there on lubing/testing.
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I’m not hearing the squeak I heard in the audio recording you linkedl. As to removing it, no amount of switch modding helped. But, like with North Pole switches, I think choice of case matters a lot so planted them on a case with least amount of squeak and did not look into why further.
Now that I think about it, I think it’s more the plate than the case. I’ve recently learned while switch modding how tightness of plate can impact both sound and feel of the switch. An overly tight plate can squeeze the switch enough to interfere with switch return so I think what may be happening is plate tightness may be distorting the switch housing, resulting in squeaks.
Still unconfirmed but I recommend trying different plates or boards with different plates.
NOTE: By squeezing the switch housing, I don’t mean plate edges are directly pushing against walls of the switch. It’s the edges pushing against legs of the switch which in turn pushes against the switch housing. So my theory is that “open” plates, kind that allows switch housing to be opened without removing won’t squeak.
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I have noticed plate material and tightness affecting how switches sound and have found that both very loose and very tight plates seem to negatively affect the sound. However…
You want to hear something crazy? I was holding those switches in hand for the sound test, and very lightly gripping them by the sides.
I put the mic from my phone near them while recording, but I can easily hear that squeak even when I hold the switches at arm’s length. It’s not like this barely audible thing that only happens right up in the mic or if I have the switch pressed against my ear. I’d estimate the volume at about 25-40% of the volume of the housing collision on a hard bottom-out.
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WS order arrived! And mostly it’s great, 3U keycap puller (will edit once I tried it), 1U keycap puller, Morandi switches 
, and the WS stabilisers…well most of them…ahem. Someone needs to QC the packaging at WS 
EDIT: the switch puller works great and is SO much nicer than the wire ones.
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Yeah. That mysterious squeak can get pretty loud. And I’ve never encountered the squeak until about a year ago.
If the switch squeaks even when held without much pressure then I don’t think it’s the plate. Haimu Pastel Peach squeaks a lot in all the boards I have except M110 replica. Bizarre.
Worst case of plate-squeezed switch I encountered was very recent. I liked how New Nixies sounded so tried replacing top housing of Cherry Red with Gat Pro X1’ss milky top. That brought the sound close to New Nixies so tried the frankenswitch from the remainder. It was pretty decent in hand so tested on a board only to find that switch stem was not returning. Test in hand again, this time squeezing the top housing legs. No return. Didn’t take much pressure either.
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Received my DO50 kit today. it’s weird calling it a 40% because it pretty much has as many keys as my HHKB tofu, but i guess that’s why that store was calling it a 50% keyboard. I still need to buy a pro micro and some diodes, but it seems alright. Nothing got damaged in shipping. And i guess i will also include a photo of what it should look like for those who are curious. I will probably cut off the separator between the numrow and the alphas so you can see the diodes.
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Who makes this kit? Wouldn’t mind having one.
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Oh interesting, the thought about switches with tight plates went through my mind, I thought I was imagining some switches felt like they have more resistance when using tighter plates, maybe I wasn’t.
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