Zealiostotle V2! I didn't expect it to be this much more!

Learning and discussion Key switches
1

I don’t know if anyone has commented on this yet, but the Zealio V2 makes for a much MUCH louder and somewhat deeper sounding Zealiostotle than V1. I don’t know anyone who actually likes Cherry blues’ sound, but IMO the gap between the sound quality of a Zealiostotle V2 vs a Zealiostotle V1 is greater than the sound quality difference between the Zealiostotle V1 and a Cherry MX Blue.

Stotle mods aren’t really all the rage anymore, and the stems aren’t too easy to find now days, but if you have the parts laying around and a chance to make some Zealiostotle V2s, I suggest you give it a whirl; and feel free to let me know what you think about them comparatively… I’m very curious what you all think.

P.S. I tried them with varying weights of progressive springs, and some linear springs. I like the 78g zealio V2 spring pretty well, and I think the 72g Progressives were pretty good. Sound didn’t seem terribly different between weights, unless your fingers were outrunning the switch on the upstroke, and even then, it was maybe in my head.

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2

Oh wow! Did you lube your Zealiostotles?

3

This is interesting timing. I’ve been grabbing extra plates and pcbs pretty aggressively, and I was actually thinking I’d like an occasional clicky build. Clicky seems so unpopular that I’m not even sure I know what the most popular (least unpopular) variant is.

Thanks for the post.

4

I haven’t lubed them up… I feel like I may need to try this out now. Anyone have experience with lubed stotles? worth it? If no one knows, it’s time to try it :slight_smile:

5

I would definitely say that zealiostotles were a community favorite, other favorites include blue and amber alps (though I have no experience personally with the latter, the former are pretty stellar), or the box thick-clicks (I prefer the heavier navies over the jades, but I like heavier switches overall).

I prefer tactile switches to all other variants, but clicky switches are interesting to me, even if they can’t be a daily driver for the purposes of not annoying others. I find linears to be the least satisfying to me (I say this as I’m typing on MX reds, and the irony isn’t lost on me).

Anyway you go, I think zealiostotles are a contender, and quite appealing with V2 housings. If I were building a board I wanted to be clicky, I’d choose them… If the cost is too steep, definitely try the box thick-clicks, which are substantially cheaper.

6

Interesting. I tried the mod and it feels pretty good. I’d say that’s the closest to a white alps or Monterrey switch that I’ve ever felt in an MX form. I still probably won’t do a whole board just because most of the Aristotle stems I have are way too loose for caps.

7

Interesting! I’m vaguely curious now as I like the idea of a deeper click like the Box Navies. I have a bag of unused Box Navies that I’m afraid to use as they’re the older gen model with the faulty stems. This might be a great alternative. Buying newer Box Navies would be cheaper though.

8

Be careful with lubing them (or any clickies). When I did it, it made the clicks inconsistent across the keys. I used a Krytox GPL-205 grease and GPL-103 oil mixture.

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So, I’ve done a bit more research on these, and found varying results depending on starting Zeal switch… Zealio V2s in 78g were sold out on zeal’s site, so I got some Tealio V2 switches in hopes that I could take the Tealio V2 stem and spring out using my Zealiostotle V1 78g springs and aristotle stems to make them into roughly the same thing as a zealiostotle V2 discussed in the original post. Results from each set of tests are as follows…

Baseline:
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zealio V2 Spring (78g) = Sounds deeper than Zealiostotle V1 (78g), strong tactility

Variants tested in my first iteration of testing:
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Sprit 78p = Sounds like Zealiostotle V2, but slightly less tactile (maybe)
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Sprit 72p = Sounds like Zealiostotle V2, but slightly less tactile (barely)
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Sprit 68p = Sounds like Zealiostotle V2, but slightly less tactile (barely)

Variants tested in my second iteration of testing:
Tealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Tealio Spring (67g) = Sounds and feels like Zealiostotle V1 (67g)
Tealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zealio V2 Spring (78g) = Sounds and feels like Zealiostotle V1 (78g)
Tealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zealio V1 Spring (78g) = Sounds and feels like Zealiostotle V1 (78g)
Zilent V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zilent V2 Spring (78g) = Sounds similar to Zealiostotle V1 (78g), Crunchy
Zilent V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zilent V1 Spring (78g) = Sounds similar to Zealiostotle V1 (78g), Crunchy
Zilent V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zealio V2 Spring (78g) = Sounds similar to Zealiostotle V1 (78g), Crunchy
Zilent V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zealio V1 Spring (78g) = Sounds similar to Zealiostotle V1 (78g), Crunchy
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Tealio Spring (67g) = Sounds and feels like Zealiostotle V2 (78g), Lighter
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zilent V2 Spring (78g) = Sounds and feels like Zealiostotle V2 (78g)
Zealio V2 Housing, Aristotle stem, Zilent V1 Spring (78g) = Sounds and feels like Zealiostotle V2 (78g)

Due to the above, I believe there must be a difference between the Tealio V2, Zealio V2, and Zilent V2 housings, as the results in all of the Zealio V2 Housings were awesome, but in Tealio V2 and Zilent V2, the results were less than desirable comparatively. All of my purchased stock of V2s (Zealios and Zilents) came with 78g springs, except the Tealios… So, if there are differences in housings from zeal in the V2 line, between switches of different weights in the same family, I would be completely unaware and unable to test for it as of now. I’m tempted to take a set of calipers or micrometers to the switches, but it’s already been a bunch of stuff to test for one evening.

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10

This is really quite interesting as I would assume that the housings for the v2 lineup would be the same. Especially since Zeal himself said that there was no difference. It would make sense to me as the tactility described by reviewers about the regular zeal v2 switches was not really what was felt on my zilent v2 switches. Theyre quite tactile, but arent nearly what I was expecting from them. Maybe the contact would ping too much with the (presumed) tactility difference in the zealio vs the zilent making the zilent less quiet. All in all good to know for some more keyboard science.

11

Yeah, the tl;dr there really is that Zilent and Tealio V2 Aristotle switchmods really aren’t better than Zealiostotle V1, but Zelio V2 aristotle mods are better than Zealiostotle V1. Even better, the spring inside V1 vs V2, at least in 78g didn’t seem to matter so long as you used a Zealio V2 housing; so, assuming the Zealio V2s all have the same housing (IDK if that’s a safe bet, based on what I found above, but I hope it is) you could take any of the springs I tested with above and get similar results…

I Should order some more Zealio V2s in whatever weight to see, but there’s some customs I’m anticipating coming up, and I think I’m going to prioritize those over testing more switches, since I have a drawer full of switches I have no boards for, and more expected to come.

P.S. I did perform many of the variations above with more than one sample of a given zeal switch type, usually 4, and I even cherry picked decent starting aristotle stems checking for similar results in each variant, so not enough samples across the board (no pun intended) to be statistically significant, but certainly enough to be specifically indicative of a difference between the housing types tested (again 4 samples of each). Given the time it takes to make each Zealiostotle, I only tested this many because the time I had set aside to play with this in the first place was planned on being spent making 110 Tealiostotle V2s out of the 110 Tealio V2s I had purchased from 110 Zealiostotle V1s (78G) I already had on hand, and I only have like 20ish loose Zilent V2s left after using a bunch in a build. Also, they’re injection molded, so I wouldn’t expect a ton of variation across the same batch of housings. But, take it for whatever my methodology is worth.