What is your ideal switch?

What is your ideal switch?

After working with various switches over time, what is the one switch you wish factories could produce?

For me:

I don’t think MX Brown, at least conceptually, is that bad.
If it were just a little improved, it could be viable, maybe even in stock form.


(Above: A disassembled SP Star Meteor Orange switch, with film applied.)


Cherry MX Camellia

So my improved MX Brown would be like this:

  1. Cherry housing materials. Nylon used by Cherry produces a satisfactory low-pitched sound. Many switch manufacturers instead opt for a ‘bright’ poppy sound. But there is a strong market for ‘Cherry sound.’
  2. Smoother molds. Cherry-style Nylon is fine and dandy, but the scratch is excessive. Instead of lubing it out, why not make the housing smoother to begin with? The scratchiness of MX1A stems was downright embarrassing, when I tested them in smooth Boba linear housings.
  3. Stable housings. MX2A seems to be getting better in this regard, at least. The pre-tooled era was atrocious, given we know that it is possible to reduce wobble.
  4. Cherry housing collisions. Cherry has soft collisions. This is better for typing ergonomics, in my opinion. Most manufacturers neglect this, option for snappy and poppy upstrokes. Only KTT Mallo and JWICK T1 seem comparably in-offensive, in this regard. For a Brown-like ‘ergo soft’ switch, you want soft collisions.
  5. Meteor Orange bump shape. The Meteor Orange stem seems alright, with regard to Brown-like tactility. A smooth stem with this shape would be good, maybe Mallo might be an option here.
  6. MX Brown or Meteor Orange leaf. SP Star’s leaf seemed to generate a pleasant and mild tactility. Bonus points if they don’t ring as much.
  7. 55-58 G spring. With the more well-defined tactility of a smooth Meteor Orange stem, you don’t need a 60 G spring. Meteor Orange’s ~57 G, supposedly 14mm spring was okay. Tactility is crisper if you go a little below 60 G Cherry weight, which was probably mandated by the spacebar [use 60 G there], and the very wide variance in actual spring weights. With better spring consistency, you can use a lower-weight “Ergo Brown.”

MeteorOrangeSampleBuilds
(Above: Builds “3” and “4” have elements of this proposed switch, namely the Meteor Orange internals and Cherry top-housing, stabilized somewhat with films.)


Since Asian switch manufacturers were smart enough to call MX Brown “Tea Axis,” I guess they could call it “Cherry MX Chai” or something. Maybe MX Camellia.

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But… Box Navy already exists? :rofl:

I mean, just in general I am very pleased with it, though I guess I’d like it if they could figure out how to better tie the click-arm to switch actuation and change the stem enough so I could always be sure I didn’t have a cap-breaker, that would be nice.

Alternatively, if somebody would figure out how to modularize a proper buckling spring, that would be killer too.

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I understand. BOX White R1 was pretty good, I wouldn’t change anything about them.

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This is my recipe for making a near-ideal Cherry MX Brown board.

  1. Cherry MX Brown stems with 3~4 coats of RO-59.
  2. Lube and film (not on stem legs)
  3. Keyboard case with 8-degree typing angle or raise the back of the case with something.

1 and 2 raises overall smoothness to an acceptable level but the tactile bump will still feel scratchy. I noticed that raising the typing angle made the bump feel smoother. Board with highest angle I have is Fjell and the set I have on the board feels very very good. Note that heavy board also absorbs a lot of minor vibrations which likely contributed.

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Would you say that the film is still necessary on MX2A?

People have written that they no longer feel it necessary to film MX2A, as their housings seem more stable.

Also, I have been envisioning an MX Brown NCR-80. The typing angle (with legs extended) is 12 degrees.

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I’d say not bc, if the film made noticeable difference, this question would be moot. :slight_smile:

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my tastes change so often, I’m not really sure …

so far, I’ve been enjoying Gateron Melodics and the nice clear “tak” sound of the HMX line-up – no issues so far with the Melodics, but I do wish HMX would put out something with a medium-heavy spring

HMX’s main focus is light and medium-light springs, but they haven’t been slouching on medium springs (Jammy, Cloud, Purple Dawn, Butter, Latte) – would just like to see what they would offer if they turned their talents towards something a little heavier

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(That or some leobog reapers work for me)

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Luckily I’ve come to really enjoy a recent switch released by Invokeys - the Hojicha Reserve.

It has a top aligned bump that’s smaller than T1 but larger than alternatives like Mode Tomorrow or Ergo Clears. The materials are definitely nicer than the standard Nylon/POM affair, with full POM housings and LY stem so they get that glassy frictionless feel. And from Theremingoat’s testing, its a pretty well balanced switch with the stock 21mm 60g spring in terms of peak tactility to bottom out force. And unlike most other long poles it actually has more than 3.5mm of travel when measured, instead of that 3.3-3.4mm range.

A very pleasant and usable tactile switch for all day typing. I thought the “everyday tactile” marketing was a bit cliche at first but I’ve come to really enjoy it over time.

I personally clean up the lube and relube myself with 3203, no films or spring swap required.

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I see that it’s “revolutionary”, “unprecedented”, and “unique” but are there any comps on this particular switch? Seems interesting.

There is a very detailed review:

It is a ‘full-travel’ tactile, that is to say, it is said to have almost no linear travel at all.

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I am not sure if this kind of tactility has been made before or is even possible but this is my ‘ideal’ linear/tactile hybrid force graph. It’s essentially a linear switch that changes its force graph slope right at the actuation point. Sudden change in slope should feel like a small but sharp tactile event similar to slicing through dental floss.

It’s not clear yet whether increasing or decreasing the slope afterward would feel better. I’ve experienced the later with super long spring in New Nixies and it’s pretty nice.

As to what to call it, maybe catchy or snaggy linear?

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For environments where noise won’t matter:

ZealPC Zilent V2 bottoms, Cherry MX Hyperglide tops, Drop Halo Clear stems, 80g (Flashquark long two-stage), filmed with Durock films, lubed with Tribosys 3204

For stealth typing:

Gazzew Boba U4 bottoms, Outemu Sky stems, *nixdork tops, 72g (Gazzew multi-stage), lubed with Krytox 205g0

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Tru, tru. Can you even find Outemu Sky / Silent Sky stems now?

Practically non so far, the Type R is the only “full-bump” switch with this characteristic.

(Funny enough last december I was hoping to find something like this and lo-and-behold Gateron comes out with this.)

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Just ordered some to try them out. Been a while since I tried a new switch.

Thanks to you and @HungerMechanic for your help

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You could call it, ‘interrupted linear.’

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