What's on your workbench today?

No pictures, but started breaking down some ink black V2s for lubing and films. Also, been thinking about the big switches I got, and if I will need to do any major mods to achive maximum thock. They have a lot of play in the stems and that bugs me.

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Class80 build…London Fog switches and Staebies stabs (is it just me or these harder to put together than others?). Going for the thinner plate foam and PC plate, and will see how that feels/sounds.

I’m ever so slightly regretting not getting the red one, but if I remember correctly it might not actually have been available anymore, so all good :wink:

EDIt: remind me to never buy a keyboard with stick-on gaskets again, or else have a beta blocker before putting them on… :crazy_face: :laughing:

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TGR Tomo build ready to go:

  1. TGR Tomo Case
  2. Hotswap PCB (until I find a switch I want to make permanent on the soldered PCB)
  3. TX stabilizers.
  4. U4T switches (until I find something else…probably going to try Blackberry switches)
  5. KAM L’il Dragon keycaps (what I have available. Trying not to buy keycaps right now). Not sure if the pink and purple is going to work, but they don’t look bad side by side.

Goal of the build is to make it noisy, “clacky” (higher pitch/tone, I’m not a sound guy), and fun to type on.

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Class80!

Trickier than expected - love the London Fog switches, but somehow the keyboard sounds both muted and loud…well, lovely and deep when I do “finger roll” typing, but deep and loud when I do 6-finger hunt and peck typing…:crazy_face:

Tried different keycacaps (NK Stone vs XVX) without change, and Black Lotus, Illusion, Aflion Blue Skies, and WS MM all Pom with no improvement. Out of these the WS were the most muted, but not quite as nice as the London Fog.

Options:

  • use thicker plate foam
  • use double layer case foam
  • tape mod?
  • different keycaps? (I don’t particularly like the look of the NK Stone Set here, I don’t think it works, it’s too similar, yet just a little bit off)

But anyway, here’s the so far “finished” build:

Alternative keycaps im considering in no particular order:

  • GMK Moonlight (gorgeous but would it work?)
  • Domikey Astronaut (nice but maybe a bit too matchy-matchy?)
  • Cannonkeys Moon (there’s a theme here…)
  • NicePbt Burgundy (high contrast could be good?)

What do y’all think would work?

I haven’t thought about the quality or sound profile of these caps, or ABS vs PBT as I haven’t really gotten into that side of things yet…so, feel free to enlighten me :relaxed:

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Try different springs. Long springs tend to make switches louder bc top weight fools the finger into applying more pressure than regular springs.

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I presume that’s because of the e hunt-and-peck smacking of the keys…I haven’t had this issue with other switches (or at least it wasn’t as noticeable). I read the entire thread on “About Springs” which was helpful, but still a little confusing.

In your opinion, would a progressive spring work to slow down the “smack”? Or make it worse?

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Today I worked on the carbide rods for my stabilizer mod. Side note. Do not run a .062" carbide rod through your finger. It hurts.

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Well, I know enough about springs to make suggestions but not enough to make predictions. Experiment. :slight_smile:

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Haha, point taken! I will happily take suggestions that point me in the rightish direction (or at least point out the wrong direction :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:) . I was trying to say I understand it’s all a matter of opinion/preference and not set in stone…:wink:

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In that case, I’d suggest testing what you have on hand, starting with:

  1. “normal” springs first, 14mm ones.
  2. different weights.
  3. progressive springs.

Focus should be on finding right “direction” than “perfection”.

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I tried out a few springs from other switches, but I noticed no discernible difference. I just opened other switches from a switch sampler, so probably not the best samples, but there were shorter ones, heavies ones, two stage ones, so at least a bit of variety. Maybe my fingers are not that sensitive…:disguised_face:

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First switch lube effort! Black Lotus on the lube station…please tell me there’s a better way to open switches than those little switch openers - I tried two and they’re both annoyingly only half opening the switch (none of the pretty dangling open like on YouTube, Hmpf :wink:).

Other than that the actual lubing is quite meditative :man_in_lotus_position:

Ps: I know the stems are supposed to go in the other way, I just find them easier to pick up this way…

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Still lubing…but TIL that (at least for the Black Lotus switches) I like to lube the stem and the bottom of the spring (forgot to bring the spring oil, so 205 it is).

  • lubing everything (top and bottom housing, stem, both ends of the spring) basically takes away any character of the switch
  • lubing top housing also takes away too much of the character
  • lubing bottom housing doesn’t seem to do much at all
  • and I am undecided whether lubing the top and bottom of the spring has any discernible effect. At least it’s not so noticeable that I’m opening up the first batch of switches again to change it.

Also learned that I totally see the benefit of bag lubing the springs with oil…
…and that I might need some sort of magnifier (gulp) :scream:

I also want a new switch opener :innocent:

Now need to finish the second half of the lot :wink:

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@kb123 What oil do you recommend for lubing springs in a bag, respectively with a pencil?

I was thinking about fine mineral oil (as used for lubing sewing machines) for bag lubing springs, but maybe this is not sufficiently viscose.

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I was considering DCX 9009 for mine, but not sure how it will look. Stone was also on my list, and I have to agree that it’s close but not quite

@donpark is right about experimenting, and I have one to add to the experimental pool next time you’re working on switches if you haven’t tried them already: Halo True springs in linear switches. More than any other I’ve tried so far, these discourage me from bottoming-out and make it easier to avoid. They start out at 40-45g, but ramp-up to 100g at the end of travel. If I wanted to cultivate that typing style, I’d use these to help train myself for it.

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I don’t think I’m in a position to recommend anything having not yet done any bag lubing , but the standard seems to be Krytox 105 GPL (iirc).

As I was fiddling with it th brushing every spring end, I just thought how easier it would be to chuck them all into a bag, add some drops of oil, swish them around and then fish them out again. Though I guess that last part could be awkward with oily and tangled springs…

Ah yes, I can see this working! For my own, I think I was hoping for something either brighter or more colour, but I actually really don’t know. Haven’t developed an eye for keycap/keyboard colour combos yet.

These makes sense, though I can’t seem to find them other than in the actual switches, which seems a bit wasteful. And I can’t seem to find any other short/fast curve springs. Any ideas what would be a reasonable substitute?

Honestly no - if there is one available on its own I’m not aware of it.

That said I’ve been hoarding them for years and I’d be happy to send you some, ha!

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hey, thanks @Deadeye that’s really kind! I just sourced some 85 springs for 5 Euro in Germany as I’ll be visiting there again soon. But thank you very much for your offer! also, for the “curated switch samplers”. I am interested in those, but I feel like that’s a big ask… :wink:

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@kb123 Five euro, that is pretty cheap for springs in Europe. From what German shop did you order?

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