Captain Obvious to the rescue? (Pre "using" linears?)

[dante]

So with the hoopla of the recent batches of Cherry switches possibly using new tooling (some say it's still scratchy...)  the only thing that can be agreed on is that well used linears will smooth out in time.

Has anyone ever thought about a giant plate that would hold batches of switches and then having a robotic arm/plate repeatedly push this group of switches over and over as if QC'ing them?  This way the switches can come out pre "used" and will have much smoother stems than starting from scratch.

This could also be a good "QC" test before soldering them into a board.

[tp4tissue]

Hahahhahahaha.. you probably wouldn't do it this way, because it would be a huge new machine, and that's way more expensive to develop and put into the line than playing with existing components to achieve a different surface finish.


Overall, I'd give them the benefit of the doubt as to why they are the way they are.. Germans are no slouch..  There's probably a design reason they're a little scratchier out of the box..

For example, when you inject the plastic, if the surface of the mold is super super smooth that might cause sticking or warping as the plastic is blown out during ejection or injection, so you might lose some tolerance there..

If you have a grittier surface, there might be a minuscule layer of air pockets between the plastic and the mold,  so that way there's less sticking.. and it clears the mold more easily/ reliably.  perhaps increasing the rate of production.

[tp4tissue]

But overall..

Being smooth out of the box, shouldn't be a priority to an actual USER of the keyboard..

It's only a small hurdle for people who buy a bunch of keyboards and use them for the first week that they get it, before they buy another keyboard and make another post on geekhack about having bought it..


I feel like that's the only reason some people buy keyboards is to post on geekhack of having bought yet another keyboard.

[CapnHighlands]

In general I feel like Gaterons are really the way to go for linears. Exitfire401 told me to grab some Gat Blacks and I think they are far and away better than Cherry linears. Plus, they're cheaper, too!

[zpcomstock17]

In general I feel like Gaterons are really the way to go for linears. Exitfire401 told me to grab some Gat Blacks and I think they are far and away better than Cherry linears. Plus, they're cheaper, too!

Not much cheaper, they're mostly 10-15% cheaper than genuine cherry keyboards. They still charge a premium, if you're getting a mechanical keyboard 40-50% cheaper than a Cherry mechanical keyboard then it's probably Kailh or Greetech which make switches that have inevitable failure.

I had a Noppo Lolita and the blue Kailh switches felt pretty nice for the first week but gradually that feeling started to degrade into garbage, until the switches eventually gave up and committed suicide.

In my opinion: Gaterons > Cherries > Outemu > Greetech > Kailh

[Wingklip]

You could disassemble them all and acetone vapor smooth the stems just a little bit.

[CapnHighlands]

In general I feel like Gaterons are really the way to go for linears. Exitfire401 told me to grab some Gat Blacks and I think they are far and away better than Cherry linears. Plus, they're cheaper, too!

Not much cheaper, they're mostly 10-15% cheaper than genuine cherry keyboards. They still charge a premium, if you're getting a mechanical keyboard 40-50% cheaper than a Cherry mechanical keyboard then it's probably Kailh or Greetech which make switches that have inevitable failure.

I had a Noppo Lolita and the blue Kailh switches felt pretty nice for the first week but gradually that feeling started to degrade into garbage, until the switches eventually gave up and committed suicide.

In my opinion: Gaterons > Cherries > Outemu > Greetech > Kailh

I meant when buying the switches themselves en masse. You can get them for like 20 cents a piece.

[rowdy]

Why isn't dante's custom title "Captain Obvious" yet?