I recently picked up some Box Royals and I've been playing around with them.  They have one really interesting property: their significant tactility comes not from the shape of the slider but rather from stiffening the little nub that the slider pushes against so that it requires more force to push the switch down.

This has very significant implications if you're into swapping switch parts around.  You can take any tactile box switch, stick it in a Box Royal housing, and boom: instant tactility increase.  It's not a subtle effect either.  I tried this with some Halo Trues, a switch that technically has a tactile bump but personally I would characterize it has so weak you normally can't even tell it's there.  But put them in a Box Royal housing and suddenly they're tactile as ****.

I'm still experimenting to find the best (for me anyway) combo of parts, but there's a ton of potential here.  And this should work with any tactile box switch.

Yes the tops are interchangeable with other box switches.

Haata's force curve for Box Royal.

Honestly there isn't really any tactile switch in the MX world that matches the sheer magnitude of that bump.  In this case using a different slider is more about getting something smoother or with a different character to the force curve than trying to more tactile, because Royals are about as tactile as it gets.

For instance I have in front of me both a Box Royal where I swapped only the spring with a Hako True and a Hako True spring and slider in a Box Royal housing.  The bump on the Royal is still larger, though the True in a Royal housing is no slouch in that department either.  I can confirm this by pressing the tops of the two switches against each other and indeed the True slider will move first.  But the modded True feels smoother and more consistent to me.  Overall I think I prefer it, but it's a more subtle thing.

This is cool! I personally like the color of the salmon Hako True, but investing that much for just a color swap is a bit much.

I am planning on ordering some for my Jane. I know SPRiT will be offering springs, but I'm not sure on the weight. It seems that if I prefer his 68g springs for MX, I would want to go about 10g lower, which would be either 55g or 60g.
Is that accurate?

Swapping springs definitely affects the force.  That's actually why I actually wanted to keep the springs the same for comparison.

Here are all the combinations I've tried.  I did a bunch of test pushing the switches into each other in order to check their relative stiffness, so this chart is in order from most to least stiff initial bump.  I am only comparing which switch gets pushed in first initially.  Comparing them post-bump is a lot trickier.  All of these are using a Box Royal housing unless I say 'stock' so I'm not bothering to write that part each time.

Switch	Notes
Box Royal slider w/ Hako Clear spring	Just a spring swap but the Hako spring is much heavier than stock Box Royals
Box Royal slider w/ Hako True spring	Wait, how could this be below the Clear spring you ask?  More discussion below
Hako Clear slider w/ Hako Clear spring	The Hako Clear slider seems to be really tactile
Hako True slider w/ Hako True spring	Feels really smooth.  I like this one
Box Royal slider w/ Box Royal spring	Stock Box Royal
Hako Clear/Violet slider w/ Box Royal spring	Couldn't actually tell the difference between the two Hakos here.  Pretty sure the sliders are actually the same
Hako True slider w/ Box Royal spring	I think it's different from the above...
Stock Hako Clear	It's stock...
Stock Hako True	It's stock...
Hako Violet slider w/ Violet spring	Slider feels very sticky.  Spring is too weak for the job.
Stock Hako Violet	It's stock...

OK, some takeaways from this.  First of all while the housing is definitely a big part of the Box Royal's huge tactile bump, the slider design is also part of it.  Given the same spring none of these switches ever beat the bump of the Royals.  Obviously another slider with a heavy spring can be Royals with a light spring though.

A lot of you might wonder how could a Box Royal slider with a Hako Clear spring require more force than the same slider with a Hako True spring.  Trues use a heavier spring, right?  Well, the True spring definitely is heavier when bottoming out, but it's actually a nonlinear spring.  I think Clears are too but it's more pronounced in Trues.  So Trues are very heavy to bottom out but they actually require less force early on, and these bumps are all quite early in the switch's travel.  Sure enough if I continue to push them together I see the one with the True spring eventually 'win' and push back the Clear spring.

As near as I can tell Hako Clear and Hako Violet actually use the same slider, it's just that Violets have a much lighter spring.  There is no appreciable difference between the two if you swap out their springs.  Trues feel every so slightly different though...but maybe I'm just crazy.  It's a pretty subtle difference that could maybe be explained by the amount of lube or something.

The Hako Violet spring is just not strong enough to deal with the stiff housing.  It's feels kind of sticky and slow on the return.  In fact I did get it to actually stick in place once, and that's without even having the weight of a keycap or anything.  I would avoid that combination.

All of the Hako switches also felt slightly sticky when used with the Box Royal spring, though not nearly as bad as the Violets with their stock springs.  Oddly enough a stock Box Royal doesn't feel this way.  So its slider may be optimized to handle the return better.  This was not an issue when using the heavier Hako springs though.

In the end the only two combos I really recommend are the Hako Clear slider + spring in Box Royal housings or the Hako True slider + spring in Box Royal housings.  They're basically just more tactile versions of their respective stock switches, and I always felt that their stock tactility was lacking.  You might also consider just using their springs with Box Royal sliders if you want even more tactility but that almost feels like overkill to me.  Of course if you're not a fan of nonlinear Hako springs (though I am) I thought maybe the Hako sliders with Box Royal springs would work but the weird stickiness on the return bothers me.  I would rather just use stock Box Royals at that point.

I've put way too much work into this...well it would be interesting to some non-Hako tactile Box switches in these housings as well but I don't actually have any.  But a more tactile Burnt Orange or something would be worth trying if I did.

Ugh.
And here I was wishing Hako True stems came in better tactile iterations--and they do!
But at the cost of more...cost. 

Just put a Hako True stem and spring in a box royal housing. Can also confirm that the tactile bump is substantial.

I have only tested an individual switch mounted to a plate and not soldered into the PCB next to a stock Hako true and stock box royal in the same setup.

To me I feel like I'm getting 85% - 90% of the original Box Royal tactility at the top, but then the bottom out is super cushiony due to the True spring. In terms of sound, this "True Royal", or whatever it's going to be called, has more bass and isn't nearly as clacky as the stock Royal. This is likely due to the spring cushioning the bottom out more.

I don't really know what else to say other than this is a slightly less tactile switch (in a less harsh way) than the stock Box Royal, with a really nice spring weighting.

TL;DR: This is a really interesting switch that I'm considering for a higher end build.

 

Do report back on how a full board of them feels! Really hoping it's as nice as just a single switch felt.

i tried putting a thick click clickbbar +slider into a royal housing, feels a bit more solid, not too different overall though

OK I finally made enough True Royals to put into my K-Type.  I had wanted to do this earlier but I was traveling.

I've only done the alphas for now but I really like it.  I had worried a bit that with the very high bump and heavy spring it would be possible to clear the bump without actuating but in practice that doesn't seem to happen.  Overall it's a very pleasant typing experience.  In many ways they're just a better MX Clear.  They both share the traits of having a largish tactile bump followed by a pretty heavy spring to prevent bottoming out so much.  But I think the bump in the True Royals is sharper and more distinct and the bottoming out weight his even heavier.  And of course you have the benefits of being a box switch (water resistant, less wobble).

If you don't like MX Clears at all I don't think you'll get much out of these.  But if you do, or if you liked the idea behind Hako Trues but were disappointed by their lack of tactile feedback then I would definitely recommend these.

Imo this should be the naming scheme: Hako Clear or True stem/spring + Royal housing = Hakoyal Clear or True

I made a board with Hakoyal Clears, and they are stupidly tactile. Hard to say if the tactility is actually increased, but it definitely lengthens and rounds it off with a cushier bottom out compared to the sharp plummet with a Royal stem. It's a lot like going from Zeals to Zandas. Using True spring instead (all Hako sliders are the same) was nice as well though tactility was softer due to the force ramp up. If you like Zealios, go Hakoyal Clear. If you like Cherry Clear, go Hakoyal True.

Hako stem + Royal housing/spring wasn't very good imo. Sounded oddly rattly and felt sluggish as the upstroke struggled to return. Pretty similar to the problem with Box Jade. I haven't tried just spring swapping, but my gut tells me that it's probably not worth it unless you are looking for something very specific. I'll have to attempt it later.

For $1/switch Hakoyals get a 10/10 on the big butt tactility scale. I still need to make a full board of stock Royals for a better comparison.

Would be down to do this, but opening those switches is just so hard and end up wrecking the tops :/.

I wonder how this would feel for a aristotle stem... I am a tactile fanatic, so this is really appealing for me haha

I wonder how this would feel for a aristotle stem... I am a tactile fanatic, so this is really appealing for me haha

Uh...that's not a box switch so it wouldn't fit at all.

Quote from: Kevadu on Thu, 07 June 2018, 13:36:51

Quote from: nativejibroney22 on Thu, 07 June 2018, 10:32:32

I wonder how this would feel for a aristotle stem... I am a tactile fanatic, so this is really appealing for me haha

Uh...that's not a box switch so it wouldn't fit at all.

I mean if you switch the top to a non-box kaihl, since it's the bottom that gives the extra tactility

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You can't just switch the tops, the entire box switch assembly and actuation mechanism is different from a standard MX switch.