Cherry MX - White vs. Clear vs. Blue

[sixty]

So some of you may know that once upon a time there was another switch in the Cherry MX family - the white stem switch. This was the clicky switch that was being used before Cherry introduced the MX Blue switch.

Recently I managed to get my hands on a NIB keyboard that uses these long forgotten switches. Made in July 1986, it is equipped with lots and lots of these old clicky Cherry MX switches. If Cherry was already following their production-time-scheme back then, its safe to assume that the switches were probably already produced in late 1985. Which would mean that MX switches are about 1 or 2 years older than I had originally researched.

Now, first things first, we should stop calling clear switches clear and call them white, or stop calling white switches white and call them clear as well, because afterall they are the same damn color:



Next... how does this switch compare to the clicky blue switch? Its pretty similar. The sound is a little less annoying and the key feels a bit smoother. I would roughly guess it needs 5-10g less to activate. However, after opening one up it turns out that there are quite a lot of differences in comparison to the modern blue MX switches.




The springs also are entirely different:


So there you have it. A lot of new information on a switch you will most likely never have the chance of using. What a waste of bandwidth and time!

[keyboardlover]

Cool story bro (literally). Thanks for sharing!

[The Solutor]

Nice finding...

[nocturn4l3030]

wow nice, howd u come accross a board like that? pictures of the board? or does it look very standard

[Mr. Perfect]

That silicone grease(it is silicone, right?) is interesting. I put a similar amount on the clear switches in the G80-8113 I've got and thought it was over kill. Apparently it's par for the course. Does Cherry grease switches like that still?

On another note, those look an awful lot like Cherry Clear springs. Makes me wonder if Clears and Whites are related. They're a different force you say?

[The Solutor]

That silicone grease(it is silicone, right?)

Maybe lithium grease (just guessing because, at the  time, silicone grease was not so widespread)

[RiGS]

We need a RO-59 MO.

[theferenc]

So would you say that whites are clicky clears? The springs look quite similar, and the only difference seems to be the click thingamajig.

[sixty]

Nope, not as stiff as clears.

[mtl]

Great info.  Thanks, sixty!

[mtl]

Next... how does this switch compare to the clicky blue switch? Its pretty similar. The sound is a little less annoying and the key feels a bit smoother. I would roughly guess it needs 5-10g less to activate.

Note that the spring though looks more like Sandy55's than Sixty's.

 
I think ripster's on to something. The data sheet lists whites at 80 cN (same as greens). Whether 80 cN is at the peak of the tactile bump or the (lower) activation point, either way it should be stiffer than a blue key since the blue force curve doesn't exceed 65 cN. It seems like sixty's whites are not MX1A-A, but something different?

sixty, does your Nixdorf keyboard's space bar have a clicky dark-grey (36) 105 cN MX1A-B switch? It's on the data sheet but I don't see any mention of it on the wiki.

[mtl]

I thought "Movement Differential" refers to those weird on/off ones?

I think "Alt. Action" is the on/off, since that's in the description for MX1A-3, and given the descriptions for blues and greens both say Movement Differential.

Matching up the data sheet to available force graphs (blue, clear, and brown), the data sheet's force measurements correspond to the force graph's tactile bump peak (local maxima), not the actuation point. If this correspondence holds for all the keys, then it seems the light grey switch would activate somewhere lower than 80 cN. The wiki states 80 cN is the activation point, but it seems more likely 80 cN is the bump peak.

[sixty]

Received another board with clicky whites today. These are actually harder than Blues and require more force. They feel very similar to greens. These must be the ones that Sandy also found in his Chicony. In the end it seems ripster might be right and the early Cherry scene is very similar to ALPS confusion.

[noodles256]

Received another board with clicky whites today. These are actually harder than Blues and require more force. They feel very similar to greens. These must be the ones that Sandy also found in his Chicony. In the end it seems ripster might be right and the early Cherry scene is very similar to ALPS confusion.

ripster issssss the number one mech keyboard on the planet.

[sixty]

Hah - YOU KNOW the way to measure how stiff.

Is this a trap?

No trap here, but I am too lazy to measure switches. Be it with coins or fishing weights. Another problem is that both boards I own with white clicky switches are not PC compatible as is. I am considering to move some into my Poker though.

I just took a look at the springs, no dice with the earlier Sandy assumption. They look entirely different from both - the whites I had before and the one that Sandy posted.

The plot thickens.

[sixty]

A small update. I sent a few of these old white clicky switches to the Chinese collector yab8433408. He has a better eye for detail than me and noticed some more differences:

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 23796[/ATTACH]
[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 23797[/ATTACH]

You can see the case design of the old white clicky switches is actually different from clears/blues.