If you could improve the Cherry MX switch line up (Even tooling change) - WWYD

[trrc]

Kind of a fun little exercise to see what cool ideas come out of a brainstorm amongst the Cherry fans. What improvements do you think could be made to the iconic MX lineup in 2022?

[MIGHTY CHICKEN]

If cherry still hasn't made ergo clears the default, make ergo clears the default

[Maledicted]

Kind of a fun little exercise to see what cool ideas come out of a brainstorm amongst the Cherry fans. What improvements do you think could be made to the iconic MX lineup in 2022?

The clear choice is to cease production of MX and make some Alps clones, or design something good. 

[lakdsjfhklasdjfh]

imo i would improve the wobble in the switch and maybe lengthen the poles of the stems and work on some slightly different blends of thermoplastics to improve smoothness without ruining the signature sound of cherry switches, just my thoughts

[HungerMechanic]

The current materials are one of their greatest strengths, so I wouldn't be inclined to change that.

Cherry housings are super-powered compared with most other switches in terms of sound characteristics.

Tooling degrades too quickly - the first batches of a new line are typically good [not consistently], but then production becomes scratchy all-too-quickly. So they need to work on that. Refresh the tooling more, or use better tooling.

Springs are often noisy, and not that consistent. So that could be improved.

Tactile leafs are pingy until you break them in with thousands of key-presses. Can that not be improved?

Modern Hyperglide housings are designed improperly, they conflict with Cherry profile and certain stems. It's a problem that has most recently affected the updated MX Clears. The top housing in particular is the problem, I believe.

Wobble has always been a problem. Maybe copy OUTEMU's tight, no-slot tops from their custom-line.

So, this way, we might get regular Cherry switches, but with the old (Correct) housing design + quieter and more consistent springs + much tighter top housings + smooth stems.

Also, if the spring weight is more consistent, they could use 55-58 G on the MX Browns, instead of 60 G.

With regard to the Ergo Clears, they will need to come with more lube than is typical for Cherry in order to function well. At least, that's the case if the spring weight upon actuation is less than 60 G. With 67 G springs, you might get away with regular Cherry lube, might even be the case with poppy 62 G springs. But if using lighter 14mm 65 G springs, for example, which work well with Ergo Clears, you'd want some lube in there.

Not sure there is a point to factory Ergo Clears anymore, since everyone mods their switches and makes their own brand of Ergo Clears. Yeah, a 67 G factory Ergo Clear would probably work, but would anybody use it? They'd buy it to mod it, might as well use regular (pre-Hyperglide) Clears for that.

[Leslieann]

Half travel Cherry MX Blue.

~1.3mm activation, and ~2mm total travel.
A.K.A. hand wired blues, not to be confused with o-ring or J-spaced Jailhouse Blues. Oh, and better quality springs.

This leaves a quieter more solid click sound with just a hint of pre-travel, closest thing I've used feel-wise is Zealio V2 with 54g springs. O-ringed/J-spaced blues have less almost zero pre-travel but with similar noise to the Zealios.


Really though, the thing we need to improve most today is stabs.

[Carter]

Keep em coming

[HungerMechanic]

If Cherry does sell Ergo Clears, it may need to sell them in 2 weights. A 62 G 'light' and 67 G 'medium.' Because people have different preferences.

Cherry tactiles also benefit sometimes from Progressive springs. Ergo Clears are good with 68 G Progressive and also 63.5 G [but that's borderline too light]. Not sure about Browns, but 63.5 or 65 G P could be the right weight - it almost works with TTC Watermelon Milkshake [i.e. Browns].

People who customize switches use some of the Cherry parts but not all of them. So for these people, it might be helpful to be able to buy Cherry switches in pieces [e.g. top and bottom housing, stem, maybe springs]. Look at the OUTEMU custom sales from Gazzew for examples.

I agree about the stabilizers. Cherry and GMK stabilizers went to crap a few years ago, now we have to line up for exotically-named stabilizers from Asia and their many revisions. Just make Cherry stabilizers good and cheap like they used to be. They would dominate. [Don't get me wrong, I like Zeal and C3 and probably TX stabilizers, but Cherry spacebars were/are the GOAT].

Cherry might consider a 'heavy' tactile of the modern type. For example, I see people putting U4T stems inside Cherry housings, which makes for a softer U4T [you can probably get away with 55 G 15mm springs here].

Anyway, I really have to emphasize: make the stems smooth. I have been building frankenswitches using MX Browns, and they really stand out in their scratchiness as compared with Gateron or other types. If you don't believe me, put MX Brown stems in Boba housings at 55 - 63.5 G, and compare the sound and feel with something like Gateron Orange. This is unacceptable, and comes across during typing.

Biggest new tip: Bring back Vint Browns. Whatever they were, they have achieved cult status.

The old vint Clears and switches derived from them are also more impressive, go try some at meetups or wherever.

[HungerMechanic]

Also, Cherry lacks an intermediate-weight linear. Black is fairly heavy, Red is very light.

Time to use the spring of the Gateron Yellow, call it "Cherry Yellow."

Maybe a 63.5 G "Cherry Orange" linear, and a 65 G "Cherry Yellow." [67 G linear is too common. Although I guess you could bump those weights up by ~2 G each.].

EDIT: Cherry could also make money by bringing back the sought-after "Nixie" MX Black housing [which may have been smoother than average], and the beloved HiRose stem.

[NoUbell]

I would improve the stock cherry springs as they feel slightly inconsistent imo.

I wouldn't change the housing as I really like the top and bottom out sound which is very nice. 

I would like a better tactile that has a nice leaf that is not pingy, I would really like ergo clears being sold. My biggest problem with cherry is the cherry/gmk stabs which lost so much quality. The first batches were very nice stabs.

[Leopard223]

Well I might be exaggerating but I would like Cherry to come up with a new mechanism to create tactility, I have no issue with the current one, maybe I havn't used "real tactile" switches but it's tactile enough (I refer to switches such as Bobas).

But, there's one big drawback to Cherry's design and it's the leaf ping/crunch, due to the way it's generated it's causing leaf and "crunch", makes the switch really sound un-clean.

[Maledicted]

Well I might be exaggerating but I would like Cherry to come up with a new mechanism to create tactility, I have no issue with the current one, maybe I havn't used "real tactile" switches but it's tactile enough (I refer to switches such as Bobas).

But, there's one big drawback to Cherry's design and it's the leaf ping/crunch, due to the way it's generated it's causing leaf and "crunch", makes the switch really sound un-clean.

I like nothing about MX tactility. It is too rounded and just feels like plastic rubbing on plastic for their tactiles. Their clickies crunch and rattle moreso than click at all. I still think that if the best switches available had actually survived the 90s (as opposed to Cherry having cornered the industrial and POS market), MX would not be the standard. What that best is doesn't really matter since there were more mechanisms that felt and sounded better than MX than those that did not, even if something like Alps may be a little too complex and temperamental.

[CaesarAZealad]

Incinerate MX Browns and replace them with a Zealios equivalent, Make MX blue a clickbar switch, introduce MX yellows (Medium weighted linear), add an apology letter to every board that comes with genuine MX switches XD

[HungerMechanic]

Controversial opinion: MX Browns are actually Cherry's greatest contribution to keyboard switches. The 'light tactile' concept doesn't have much competition in the mechanical world.

The only problem is the poor execution, as mentioned before: scratchy stems and housings, noisy springs, pingy leafs, inconsistent weight, wobbly upper-housing. All those problems combine to make the light tactile experience not what it should be.

[Plus, factory keyboards aren't built well, so the problems really show themselves].

A well-built Cherry MX Brown could be good. It's my understand that they used to be built better [vintage Browns].

But I agree, they also need a "heavy tactile" option: a real tactile with rich tactility than isn't just a bump in the stem. They would need to use a different mechanism from regular MX-inspired tactiles.

[Carter]

One last bump to get any final feedback in.... Might wind up actually being something

[CaesarAZealad]

Well if this might actually wind up being something then I hope they take serious consideration of that medium weight linear and an "Extreme tactility" switch. I think that since cherries come in most commercial keyboards giving your average consumer a larger range of choice would do wonders in bringing more people into the community.

[butre]

better springs and leafs, new molds more often.  more consistent factory lube on whites, clears that don't stretch keycaps, and maybe figure out a way to get the maraca effect out of blues and greens.

also maybe an ultralight linear and a medium linear.  reds are light and blacks are about as heavy as most people would want to go

[Findecanor]

New switches:
• Silenced MX Clear, and in different weights. Correct the stem thickness.
• Silenced MX Blue. Muting unnecessary noise would make the click on actuation be the only sound of the switch you hear. Tune the sound to a lower pitch, if possible.

Changes:
• Redesign the top housing to reduce light-bleed and improve legibility: Replace the LED cutout with a light-pipe / lens of clear plastic surrounded by black POM plastic (like Flaretech Prism!) but make it flare out at the top for better light distribution.
• Reduce the slope on the north side of the top housing, so that keycaps don't hit it. (like Kailh Box!)

Also:
• Release some more variants of Cherry MX Low Profile, as previously promised. But please do also add variants of the switches mentioned above.
• Official Cherry keycap set for MX Low Profile. Base it on the traditional Cherry profile but make the bottom row all space-bar profile except for ←↓→ in Row A!

[HungerMechanic]

Hey, those are good MX suggestions [especially silent Clear and Jailhouse Blue].

Point taken on the BOX housing design - a superior evolution?

I would reiterate: why can't Cherry make what it used to? Vint Browns, Vint Clears, HiRose Blacks.

And reiterate: fixing all those housing / stem / leaf problems that were referred to.

New item: Why not Silent Brown?