I think this is the main-line Cream experience. They aren’t bad switches and can be tuned into quite nice switches but IMO don’t live up to the hype surrounding them. The POM housings do have a unique sound, but personally I’m not that big a fan of it.
However… one of my favorite frankenswitches is the “Creamy Ink” - Cream stems in Ink housings. They’re kind of redundant these days with all the long pole stuff available stock, but if you already have the parts and want to try shortening the travel of your Inks and adding a bit more impact to the sound, it’s an option.
If you don’t mind some degree of careful tinkering, I have some left-over Silent Inks with clipped legs; I’m not sure what’s wrong with the dead ones in your board, but both contacts / the leaf are swap-able with a little care. I can send you a handful of those clipped Silents, from which you can harvest working contact / leaf parts.
Now that, I think you may be onto something. I don’t know that I’ll use the Creams in their current form and I happen to still have all those Kangaroos sitting around. Those housings sound nice with Kailh black stems so I can definitely see Creams doing that too. I think long pole stems brighten up the sound signature of Inks in a really enjoyable way so I think that may be what I do.
For the deadbeat switches, I’ve shuffled a few around and it’s down to one, which makes me think that it’s the contact legs somehow. I’ve never swapped contacts before but I figure that’s the final frontier in my switch modding experience
And I appreciate the offer! Nothing looks out of place at first glance but I’ll open it up tomorrow and see if I can figure anything out. I’ll DM you with what I find!
I decided I needed to make some legs to support the metal switch plate for my Realforce. The finding of random objects to prop it up on was proving irritating. Anyway, these are super simple, designed in about 30 minutes and put into action. Could they be improved, oh fer shure, but they’re doing a reasonable job of holding things off the work mat for assembly and lubing.
If you don’t have a 3D-printer, you can make one easily out of foams used to package keyboard cases like I did. Simplest but not the prettiest method:
cut the foam in half diagonally.
use the halves to prop up opposing corners.
use whatever you have around to keep the halves in position. I used toothpicks. Not the cheap kind mind you. I only use highest-quality tools…within arms reach.
Another one up for sockets today. Got tired of trying to get the sockets to sit in where they needed to so drew up and printed some clips to space the PCB above the desk.
When I built a millmax board, I used 5-pin switches and plate to keep them in place until sockets are fully soldered. I tried using tape before that but they didn’t quite keep the sockets straight.
I have good luck with tape and a fair bit of fussing with it to make sure it’s dead where I want it, this is just putting space under the PCB so the sockets have room to be flush with the top of the board beforehand. Normally I’d just prop either side on random stuff, but finally made a better solution.
If I was doing a brand new build I would’ve gotten something nice in the 750w range, but since this is just a case transfer I wanted to keep it as cheap as possible, so just 1 extra fan and the case. I need to save up for Evija.
In light of my “meh” experience with Creams, some switch experimentation. All three were filmed both to adjust the sound profile and to compare them as equally as possible. From left to right:
Kangaroo Ink bottom housing, milky Gateron Yellow top housing, Cream stem, 55g TX long spring. Apparently this is called a Cthulu.
Kangaroo Ink housing, Cream stem, 55g TX long spring.
Kangaroo Ink housing, Kailh black stem, 55g TX long spring.
I built the Cthulu after seeing it suggested as a frankenswitch and honestly, any difference between it and the full Ink version are so minor that I don’t think they’re worth the additional parts unless you already have them around.
The Cream stem sharpens the Ink housing sound profile up dramatically - in a good way. While I think it can actually border on being slightly harsh on the downstroke, the addition of the film deepens the overall sound and balances it out nicely. The Kailh stem version retains more of the Ink’s signature soft “thud” on the downstroke while also being brightened up by the stem’s longer pole.
While I haven’t committed to building a full set yet, I’m glad that I built these to try them before I do.
I’m glad to hear it works well as I’ve shifted most of my plate options to plastic. I just got mine from Feng Studio in the mail yesterday and will hopefully be trying it out on a build this week. Can’t wait to see how yours turns out.
This was a very short workbench project, but I swapped Susuwatari back onto my Saturn after finally printing a 2u shift for it. Drop has never offered this key for most of their MT3 sets, but I managed to get it made using Matt3o’s STL file. It’s not a perfect color match, but it does look and feel better than swiping the numpad 0, or using a mismatched SA shift key.
