Author Topic: Hello; About me + a couple questions?  (Read 2107 times)

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Offline gaugea

  • Thread Starter
  • Posts: 0
  • Location: nyc
Hello; About me + a couple questions?
« on: Tue, 03 May 2022, 22:47:28 »
Hi geekhack,

I finally bit the hook after years of one of my friends trying to get me into mechanical keyboards. A mix of trying to improve in osu, having too much time to fill, and some youtube recommended videos was all it took for me to fall down the hole. I have a Drop CTRL with mx browns and have now bought several bunches of switches to test. I'm trying to find out what will be best for the keys I use for osu as well as the rest of the keys for typing. Not sure if it's conventional to mix switches in one board, but with my z and x keys I have just started using gateron clears that I lubed and filmed and I'm enjoying them a lot, but maybe something superior exists (this mentality will be expensive, huh?).

A couple questions I have so far:

Why are some stabs so much better than others? I understand lubing, but how are third-party stabs so much better than the ones provided stock?

From the posts I've seen from lurking, everyone seems to prefer ~62-67g with some people preferring even heavier switches, and while I know its just preference, I haven't seen a single person run anything below 50g. Is there something I'm not considering?

And finally I'm looking for a good set of plain looking SA keycaps and despite going thru probably 10 sites recommended by the reddit, and looking thru over 200 sets, I have seen maybe 2-3 that I don't hate the look of and of course they are >$100. Any recommendations on that front?

Thanks for reading and excited to get into this hobby.

Offline Sue

  • Posts: 1
  • Location: China
    • Mechanical Keybaord Factory
Re: Hello; About me + a couple questions?
« Reply #1 on: Thu, 16 June 2022, 01:05:22 »
Hi there, I am from Shenzhen Sinorise, which has been a supplier for customized mechanical keyboard &keycaps for 18 years. Helping every keyboard lover own their ideal keyboards is one of our wishes.  If you happen to be looking for someone to make a keyboard for you. I am your man. Contact me. Discord ID: Sue#1556.  Whatsapp ID +8617324371977. Email sales04@sinorisemfg.com.

Offline granola bar enthusiast

  • Posts: 316
  • Location: USA
Re: Hello; About me + a couple questions?
« Reply #2 on: Thu, 16 June 2022, 08:11:31 »
Ignore Sue, he is just a manufacturer trying to lure beginners into using his stuff.

Besides that welcome to GeekHack!

About the stabs question, stabs as a whole are a wire housed in a stem which is in a housing which is then mounted to the PCB or plate. Some stab mount better to the PCB or plate better than others and have tighter tolerances and far less dead space in the stem for the wire to rattle around in. Stabs such as TX stabs and Staebies excel at this but may be hard to get ahold of, some alternatives such as Owlstabs exist though.

When switches have a spring under 50g sometimes it may be not enough force to push down the stem fully, this isn't the case but the overall feel of under 50g is too light. although do take into consideration that actuation force and bottom-out force are different, companies like cherry and gateron frequently talk about 45g switch weight but that's actually actuation and their bottom out is something like 58g.

You can find tons and i mean TONS of SA profile keycap sets on aliexpress and also some great GMK clones. If you just search on aliexpress "SA keycaps" you will find tons. Drop also has MT3 profile which is very very similar to SA and some consider more comfortable to use and is doing a buy one get one free but they are more pricey than the sub 50 USD on aliexpress. do note that drop isn't the greatest company to support too
« Last Edit: Thu, 16 June 2022, 08:14:09 by granola bar enthusiast »