Ducky One 2 Ping noise and Different Cherry Browns (re-tooled in one of two)

[benjiven]

This is a spectrum post about quality checks and bad customer service provided by Ducky, who are from what I gather known to make quality products.

I purchased Ducky Mini 2 in the UK last week.

It came with this terrible "gamery" font https://imgur.com/a/1rA2C27

It also made a slight pinging noise on some of the keys. One thing that surprised me was how AMAZING the keys felt. I did some research and it seem s cherry did some re-tooling of the brown switches?

I contacted ducky and after days and several e-mails, they pretty much wouldn't send me the caps and kept saying to return. If elt that they could have just obliged, given that this font is not displayed in any pictures provided and it seems a little sneaky to start putting htme on. One MOD on the discord server told me that they had a manufacturing issue and another contacted a rep and he said the Nordic and Uk ISO could be either font.



I wasn't happy with the font so returned and purchased from another vendor.

Opened and the font was nice and neutral like the pictures. Started to type and keys are stiff and require WAY more force than the board I sent back, so these must be the old cherry switches that feel the same as another brown RIOTORO board I had.

Also the pinging seems to be there again, is this normal, it's quite loud.

The board is around £120 in the Uk with delivery an I feel like this shouldn't be happening.

What should I do, ducky doesn't seem to like giving answers?

[killyou]

Keyboard doesn't have to ping but when it does it's not something out of ordinary as you have metal springs inside each switch. Cherry did not put any official notes about retooling and noone promised all boards will now use retooled switches. Vendors use whatever they have in stock. Vendors are not able to control the quality of the switches, they assemble the boards with whatever is provided as long it's not obviously broken.

Fun fact, my most pinging board is hotswap Vortex Pok3r with Zealio v2 67g. The same board with MX Clears was dead silent. I start to appreciate Cherry more and more as I've grown to be quite happy with MX Blues which do not ping in my case and I'm thinking about getting rid of v2 Zealios in favour of retooled Cherry MX Browns. I might try Zealios v1 62g though.

[benjiven]

Keyboard doesn't have to ping but when it does it's not something out of ordinary as you have metal springs inside each switch. Cherry did not put any official notes about retooling and noone promised all boards will now use retooled switches. Vendors use whatever they have in stock. Vendors are not able to control the quality of the switches, they assemble the boards with whatever is provided as long it's not obviously broken.

Fun fact, my most pinging board is hotswap Vortex Pok3r with Zealio v2 67g. The same board with MX Clears was dead silent. I start to appreciate Cherry more and more as I've grown to be quite happy with MX Blues which do not ping in my case and I'm thinking about getting rid of v2 Zealios in favour of retooled Cherry MX Browns. I might try Zealios v1 62g though.

The re-tooled cherry browns I tried were amazing.

Like you said I have no control over actually getting them.

Considering a refund to see if I can get them again.

[Telstar]

I haven't tried retooled but Gateron browns are pretty good.

[benjiven]

I haven't tried retooled but Gateron browns are pretty good.

The re-tooled are insanely nicer than the standard browns

[lightsout714]

I haven't tried retooled but Gateron browns are pretty good.

The re-tooled are insanely nicer than the standard browns

Any confirmation that this is actually a real thing?

[maaaaatt]

I haven't tried retooled but Gateron browns are pretty good.

The re-tooled are insanely nicer than the standard browns

Any confirmation that this is actually a real thing?

I've got the retooled browns in my ducky one (purchased late 2018), as well as an original ducky one prior to the retooling (~2015, RIP the indicator lights in the buttons), and the retooled ones feel like a different switch. They are insanely smooth, feel ever-so-slightly-lighter than the older browns, and sound different too - they seem a tad quieter, but have a deeper 'thock' noise, as opposed to the older browns which have an unpleasant cacophonous plastic sound.

They are definitely retooled, as the newer browns don't have the stepped step top like the blues. They still don't have much tactility to speak of, but now they feel closer to alps SKCL green with a bit of character, as opposed the scratchy red feeling the older browns are (accurately) accused of.

[benjiven]

I haven't tried retooled but Gateron browns are pretty good.

The re-tooled are insanely nicer than the standard browns

Any confirmation that this is actually a real thing?

I've got the retooled browns in my ducky one (purchased late 2018), as well as an original ducky one prior to the retooling (~2015, RIP the indicator lights in the buttons), and the retooled ones feel like a different switch. They are insanely smooth, feel ever-so-slightly-lighter than the older browns, and sound different too - they seem a tad quieter, but have a deeper 'thock' noise, as opposed to the older browns which have an unpleasant cacophonous plastic sound.

They are definitely retooled, as the newer browns don't have the stepped step top like the blues. They still don't have much tactility to speak of, but now they feel closer to alps SKCL green with a bit of character, as opposed the scratchy red feeling the older browns are (accurately) accused of.

Yeah my though exactly, I really wish I haven't sent the other board back now, I don't mind a bit of wrong font if I had those glorious browns back.

There isn't really a way I can know if I am getting the browns before buying as the stores are all online, so I might just have to keep trying.

It would be nice If we could know before hand.

[maaaaatt]

I haven't tried retooled but Gateron browns are pretty good.

The re-tooled are insanely nicer than the standard browns

Any confirmation that this is actually a real thing?

I've got the retooled browns in my ducky one (purchased late 2018), as well as an original ducky one prior to the retooling (~2015, RIP the indicator lights in the buttons), and the retooled ones feel like a different switch. They are insanely smooth, feel ever-so-slightly-lighter than the older browns, and sound different too - they seem a tad quieter, but have a deeper 'thock' noise, as opposed to the older browns which have an unpleasant cacophonous plastic sound.

They are definitely retooled, as the newer browns don't have the stepped step top like the blues. They still don't have much tactility to speak of, but now they feel closer to alps SKCL green with a bit of character, as opposed the scratchy red feeling the older browns are (accurately) accused of.

Yeah my though exactly, I really wish I haven't sent the other board back now, I don't mind a bit of wrong font if I had those glorious browns back.

There isn't really a way I can know if I am getting the browns before buying as the stores are all online, so I might just have to keep trying.

It would be nice If we could know before hand.

Assuming there's a definite cutoff between the old browns and the retooled ones, perhaps your best bet would be a low volume manufacturer (less wealthy with less keyboards in their manufacturing pipeline, so perhaps less likely to buy an enormous batch of older switches) from a high volume seller (less likely to have a large number of the keyboards sitting around for long). For example I've been waiting to pull the trigger on a Varmilo VA108m from MechanicalKeyboards.com, the brown models have actually gone in and out of stock several times with a number of weeks between stock availability, so I think they would have a pretty good chance of being the retooled version.