Why PTFE grease being used for keyboards is personally ironic

[Scragg]

Ok, so I thought that the fact that we use PTFE grease for keyboards is ironic - personally.

Not because it's bad or anything like that, its great and it feels awesome in most switches.

I probably have more PTFE in my lungs than in a 2oz tube of krytox 205g0, I used to work as an Industrial oven operator in a CNC/Teflon shop. I have inhaled enough PTFE and other various types of Teflon fumes to kill an elephant and endured temperatures in excess of 600°F. I spent about a year and some change at that job before I finally caught a lucky break as a programmer and I have to say the poetic irony of going from a producer of PTFE and other teflons to being someone who can afford to be a consumer of a product that is closely correlated/related to PTFE is some sort of crazy irony.

So for those of you who are interested I would like to describe my old job for you.....

Also to reward me for all the hard work i did, I earned approximately 400 per week after taxes, this is including my IT duties I had there.

Essentially, Teflon is used for a large portion of things in the world
* power tools
* cars
* space ships/rockets
* oil rigs
* pans/cookware etc
* cutting boards
* obviously keyboard grease

there are a lot of different types, and those types have vastly different properties when it comes to heat/pressure.

on a surface level what my job was responsible for was:

* putting billets (cylinders) of compressed teflon in an industrial oven
* taking billets out at temps of 600 650 degress F the next day and putting them on steel cylinders sized perfectly for the billets anywhere from 1/8th inch to 80ish inches
* billets could be anything from a few ounces to hundreds of lbs
* monitoring cooling billets for defects
* separating cooled billets from steel cylinders (pins) with a hydraulic press
* taking sorted and labeled billets to CNC shop for the next days production
* I also did IT work later on but that is not normal for an oven operator, usually high school jocks with no skills do this job, not Computer nerds

so as for teflon materials here is a high level overview

you have your PTFE based teflon either pure or a mix for different applications.... I am not a chemical/industrial engineer so I have no idea what the different mixes are for
PTFE is the "cheapest" teflon material that my shop dealt with its is fairly fragile and easy to heat and cool. most times as an oven operator you will leave this material in the oven last and load it first so that you have an easier time unloading the other material first. you can pin this material at around/ as low as 450-500 degrees, which is a pretty low temperature compared to 600 however it does not take long for that extra 100 degrees to escape the oven. (and hit you and make you sweat a bunch)
PTFE based teflon is usually white in color, when it is cooked it becomes almost clear, you know you can pin it when the color returns all the way around it. If you pin it too hot it will not cool evenly and it will be oblong, you will have to re-heat it.

Carbon based PFA teflon - color can be anywhere from black/gray - this material is very hard to pin, you need to pin it at as high of a temperature as possible, as soon as the oven doors are open, you have seconds to pin this.

other teflon / eck etc types of teflon - beige,yellow, green, pink - this material is even harder to pin than carbon based teflon. usually this type of teflon is used for highly specialized jobs. you dont really see it a lot... but when you do you know its going to be a pain. sometimes even at a high heat on these you will need to "beat" the billets onto the pins. this is where you take the whole pin, whatever is on it, and slam the billet onto the pin as hard as possible on the ground.



So. Other than the technical aspects of the job, there was the physical labor required. To be quite honest if you ever are in a position where you need a job... I am almost certain you could get a job doing this, its literal hell on earth. You will be staring and reaching into an industrial oven full of material that could kill you if it gets too hot. You will be breathing in fumes that will make you very sick, and enduring temperatures that will make you very sick, at long hours that will also make you sick and tired. Every single day you get done with work you will either A. feel good but be tired B. feel sick and also tired (and there is a good chance you will have a new burn scar). My first month i had heat exhaustion pretty much every single day, I drank anywhere from 3-4 gallons of water a day, and only used the restroom a few times.(sweat it all out) HOWEVER I am not saying that this is a bad or terrible job, it is, but thats not what I am saying. Despite the awful aspects of the job, there are some good points. You can listen to podcasts, audiobooks, youtube all day with proper 3M protective headphones (leave your phone away from you however).

Overall I owe my current career and success to having this ****ty job in the past, my boss at that job kept telling me "you are way too smart to do this" people I met around the facility while working as the IT guy in my down time (2ish hours a day when i got fast at pinning) would tell me much of the same and encourage me to figure out what I was really meant to do. To be quite honest, I hated this job so much it was either success at something else or death. Or at least it felt that way, the job wasn't really that bad looking back, but in the moment for that year and some change i felt pretty awful all the time, super depressed and pretty much just an audio book consuming robot who did my job every day and then went home and played video games on a really ****ty rural connection. I worked 12 hour days and slept for about 5-6 every night, the rest of the time i spent gaming or watching DVDs that I had. My internet was way too poor to bother trying to watch netflix, sometimes it worked, most times it didnt.

TLDR: DON'T YOU EVER WORK AS AN OVEN OPERATOR FOR TEFLON SHOPS

If I didnt make something clear or you are curious about other aspects of that job or my journey from that to software engineer please feel free to ask in the thread.

EDIT: Visual representation of the process of "baking" (sintering) teflon

step 1: the powder form material must be formed into a mold either by injection molding or by compression molding (with a hydraulic press)


this one is a lot nicer than the hand lever operated ones we had

step 2: this fragile billet must be baked in an idustrial oven overnight for at least 8 hours at around 700 + degrees F (too high of a temperature will release a deadly gas)



step 3: billet must be "pinned" onto a steel cylinder, unless it is a solid billet in which case it must be cooled slowly in a closed oven

here is a picture of a cart full of non baked/sintered material with pinned and cooled material in the background, i finally found a picture of some.


step 4: cooling



some pinned material cooling


step 5: stripping
you put the pin, inside of a bigger pin that can fit it without getting stuck and then use the rod of the hydraulic press to press the center of the pin holding the cooled material "stripping" it from the pin.

step 6: sorting/QA
basically just getting all of the material going to the right place.

step 7: moving on to either CNC or shipping for use in creating parts.

Scraps from the CNC process are used/sold to make teflon pans and lubricants

here is a paper on some of the process I found will trying to find pictures for you all https://www.comsol.fi/paper/download/83999/roday_paper.pdf

there is not a whole lot of information about the process online. I don't really know why that is... It's actually very difficult to find photos to use to show you guys what I am trying to describe....

[tp4tissue]

What's the Best, bang-for-buck lubricant for keyboards.

[1391401]

why would I spend a lot of money on these greases that come in small quantities in a test tube from some keyboard site when my father has used teflon grease in his bike since the 90s and I can get the same stuff on Amazon for like 9 bucks

[Scragg]

What's the Best, bang-for-buck lubricant for keyboards.

not sure to be honest. I feel like that would come down to your preference. I didnt make PTFE grease or Teflon grease. I baked teflon billets. But I would assume that most ptfe grease is at least chemically mostly the same, i think you are going to be looking at differences of purity and consistency of the grease. I have used super lube before on a set of gateron browns, seemed like it worked pretty well, but I didn't use that particular keyboard for very long.

why would I spend a lot of money on these greases that come in small quantities in a test tube from some keyboard site when my father has used teflon grease in his bike since the 90s and I can get the same stuff on Amazon for like 9 bucks

Personal preference, hype, marketing, experimentation... all sorts of reasons. I would like a link to the grease your father uses on his bike though, I would like to buy some and try it out on a set of switches.

[1391401]

We build bicycles so when I got a leopold keyboard in 2010 or so that had a stabilizer that would bind and squeak it seemed like the most logical thing to do.  I took a toothpick (lol) and deposited grease as best I could along all sides of the the stabilizer slider, in the hole where the stabilizer bar went, as well as on the walls outside of the stabilizer.  After that it was buttery smooth and I used the board a few years ago and the grease didn't degrade or anything.

Thinking about the inside of a switch I think viscosity would become important since you have tighter tolerances but you don't have to put that thick of a layer of this stuff on to get it to work.

I did some googling, the tube he had was black but I am 99% sure this is the same product: https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Line-Premium-Grease-Fluoropolymer/dp/B002L5YYYA

[Scragg]

We build bicycles so when I got a leopold keyboard in 2010 or so that had a stabilizer that would bind and squeak it seemed like the most logical thing to do.  I took a toothpick (lol) and deposited grease as best I could along all sides of the the stabilizer slider, in the hole where the stabilizer bar went, as well as on the walls outside of the stabilizer.  After that it was buttery smooth and I used the board a few years ago and the grease didn't degrade or anything.

Thinking about the inside of a switch I think viscosity would become important since you have tighter tolerances but you don't have to put that thick of a layer of this stuff on to get it to work.

I did some googling, the tube he had was black but I am 99% sure this is the same product: https://www.amazon.com/Finish-Line-Premium-Grease-Fluoropolymer/dp/B002L5YYYA

I don't see why that wouldn't work but I would want to do some further research into the ingredients

Sulfonic acid - doesnt seem that harmful to plastic.
petroleum - part of the Teflon no biggie
calcium salts - I couldnt find any information on wether this was corrosive or not
calcium - probably trace amounts, normally you would not want to use this on plastic i think, but i could be wrong calcium is widely used for plastics.
dodecylbenzenesulphonate - acid sodium salt? a surface surfactant? reduces the surface tension of a liquid, this must be for the spread-ability of the grease?
N-1-naphthylaniline - hydrophobic chemical - must be the advertised "works even in water"

overall I cant be sure if this is 100% safe for the interior of a keyboard switch. It does contain a couple different acids. This is definitely save for metal something like a bike chain or something...
I may try it in a switch or two and see what happens.

OR if you still have that old board if you dont mind looking at the plastic parts of that stab you used it on. you might be able to tell if it has been corroded at all

[Findecanor]

Acids, petroleum and organic solvents are no-no for plastics and rubber.

Keyboard lubes tend to be based on silicone-based oils, which should be safe on plastics and rubbers as opposed to organic oils. (but a hell to wipe up if you spill it ...)

[Scragg]

Acids, petroleum and organic solvents are no-no for plastics and rubber.

Keyboard lubes tend to be based on silicone-based oils, which should be safe on plastics and rubbers as opposed to organic oils. (but a hell to wipe up if you spill it ...)

well there we go! theres a reason not to use that bicycle grease on your switches.

[Leslieann]

RC car lubricants are what you want to use, safe for plastics, easy to find and very high quality.

Honestly though, the hype around lubes is blown way out of proportion in many ways. Krytox is not some exclusive formula, like most lubes, if you figure out what's in it you can usually find something similar for a lot less money. You can also find different viscosity for different purposes.

[jamster]

Hey, congratulations with the career change. Sounds like it was a really tough time and it's good you've made a move to desk jockey.

Perhaps I missed something obvious, but what do you mean by "pinning" lubricants? I managed to get lost when you mentioned things going oblong. Or is this something to do with shaping billets of metal?

[Darthbaggins]

I did find it funny coming from an automotive tech field to IT and seeing alot of the chemicals I used for vehicles are used widely.  Also growing up I always used PTFE/Teflon based lubed for all my bike chains and guides - always lasted the longest and worked the best.

[Scragg]

Hey, congratulations with the career change. Sounds like it was a really tough time and it's good you've made a move to desk jockey.

Perhaps I missed something obvious, but what do you mean by "pinning" lubricants? I managed to get lost when you mentioned things going oblong. Or is this something to do with shaping billets of metal?

Ok, not all teflon or teflon material or PTFE is used in lubricants. What I worked on was teflon and ptfe billets....



something like this. anywhere from very small to larger than a person. PTFE grease and other teflon based lubricants or products are usually either made from ground up baked teflon (scraps from billets) or pure powder (before baking)

I will update the original post with visual representations of the process.

[jamster]

Hey, congratulations with the career change. Sounds like it was a really tough time and it's good you've made a move to desk jockey.

Perhaps I missed something obvious, but what do you mean by "pinning" lubricants? I managed to get lost when you mentioned things going oblong. Or is this something to do with shaping billets of metal?

Ok, not all teflon or teflon material or PTFE is used in lubricants. What I worked on was teflon and ptfe billets....

Show Image

something like this. anywhere from very small to larger than a person. PTFE grease and other teflon based lubricants or products are usually either made from ground up baked teflon (scraps from billets) or pure powder (before baking)

I will update the original post with visual representations of the process.

Ah, got it. I had no idea that stuff could be so heat-resistant. Thanks, learned something new today. 

[typo]

Interestingly PTFE is as said the least expensive "Dupont Teflon". It however makes for the best sounding audiophile cable "skin" or more technically "dielectric". The funny thing is that even though it is the cheapest, and other materials such as copper conductors are cheap a 6 foot cable can run into six figures! This is what I call voodoo rich sucker ripoff. You can get subjectively just as good sounding cables for a mere $30. In fact, made of the same exact internal componentry.

[chyros]

Wow, I'm a trained chemist, but PTFE production is definitely NOT an area I'd like to go to xD . Virtually all the materials and reagents are super terrible xD .

[bliss]

Audio cables - I have been summoned.

Interestingly PTFE is as said the least expensive "Dupont Teflon". It however makes for the best sounding audiophile cable "skin" or more technically "dielectric". The funny thing is that even though it is the cheapest,

That is relative: maybe the least expensive Dupont, but normally there are far cheaper materials in use; Teflon is a noble dielectric

and other materials such as copper conductors are cheap

Again, that is relative. Heavy gauge copper wire is expensive enough that is stolen from railway lines. But I concur that in comparison to silver, copper is relatively cheap.

a 6 foot cable can run into six figures!

Which one? You should be fine with five or even four figures

This is what I call voodoo rich sucker ripoff.

It's called electrodynamics. I studied it. There is a science behind it.

There are factors that increase price that you may not be aware of:

• Very few understand the intricacies of cables. Sounds silly, but true even in the age of the 7 nm process node. Heck, few understand even electrical grounding
• Know-how is thus very expensive
• Excessive costs for measurement equipment
• Geometries that require braiding cable strands by hand
• Custom connectors
• Economy of scale
• Last not least, the sonic impact of the design and thus the elevated status of all audio interconnects

In the end, the price is determined by what customers are willing to pay. Sadly, because of their sonic significance, audio cables are priced at electronic component prices. I can personally attest that with high end components differences between cables are very clearly audible and significant in listening tests, even going from four- to five-figure cables.

And someone who says differences are not reflected by measurements is measuring the wrong thing

You can get subjectively just as good sounding cables for a mere $30. In fact, made of the same exact internal componentry.

If you can pull it off, you can establish a nice business with extreme profits. Do it!

The good news is, not everybody hears or likes the differences between cables, and if a cheap cable suffices, be very happy about it, you saved a lot of money. Also, small audio systems can be a lot of fun if you know where to put the emphasis <3

TL:DR - Audio cables are not 100% rip-off, there is a science and know-how behind them that very few have mastered

[typo]

Okay, time to come clean. I wanted to see how many "sheep" were even here. Since these tend to be tech savvy people. My "small" system is completely wired with Odin II. My reference system is completely wired with Transparent Magnum Opus. I do not enjoy mixing cables unless you are trying to "tune" something. Although there are usually better means of doing that first. I am so ingrained in this, that if someone swapped out "X" cable I would be insisting my system is broken! It is true that there is a lot of engineering, R&D, overhead, labor, equipment cost....The list goes on. It costs a lot of money to make these cables outside of China. You are spot on. I was just playing a game. It is not that you can't trust me. I just wanted to test the waters before people insisted that I was a fool. A lot of people do in fact think these cables are nonsense. I can attest that they are not at all. Of course you do not go stick $200,000 of cables on $1,500 of components either. In that, case you would in fact most likely realize very little sonic impact. No one does that anyways.

[walie]

Typo: when caught BS'ing, doubles down with more BS

[bliss]

Okay, time to come clean. I wanted to see how many "sheep" were even here. Since these tend to be tech savvy people. My "small" system is completely wired with Odin II. My reference system is completely wired with Transparent Magnum Opus. I do not enjoy mixing cables unless you are trying to "tune" something. Although there are usually better means of doing that first. I am so ingrained in this, that if someone swapped out "X" cable I would be insisting my system is broken! It is true that there is a lot of engineering, R&D, overhead, labor, equipment cost....The list goes on. It costs a lot of money to make these cables outside of China. You are spot on. I was just playing a game. It is not that you can't trust me. I just wanted to test the waters before people insisted that I was a fool. A lot of people do in fact think these cables are nonsense. I can attest that they are not at all. Of course you do not go stick $200,000 of cables on $1,500 of components either. In that, case you would in fact most likely realize very little sonic impact. No one does that anyways.

You can of course resort to ridicule and sarcasm, but that won't change any realities. Thought the inside scoop from someone actually versed in the field would be appreciated.

Edit: That was funny actually So I come across like this? Guess the post is way too patronizing

Yes the topic is controversial, and there are black sheep in the industry who put ridiculous price tags on audio equipment and cables. Therefore, it's easy to overlook legit manufacturers. Anyone interested can visit a high end audio show and form their own opinion, I'd encourage that!

Back on topic, PTFE is also important in radio frequency engineering, mainly because of the low as well as stable dielectric constant. Also the low dielectric losses are important in many applications. From the electrical engineer's perspective, an excellent and important material!

[typo]

walie, I would not be surprised if every one of your 128 posts were of hating on me!

I did not mean to offend you bliss. I had no idea you knew about this stuff. I actually missed your previous post. My bad. It is in fact of much use due to it's low dielectric strength. In all aspects of electrical engineering. It, too is very caustic if overheated as noted. An interesting side note. If you have a pet bird, no PTFE cookware! PTFE cookware to a bird= instant death!

[bliss]

typo, oh my, I really pushed your buttons... Next time I will try to tell you very gently that you are very wrong

[1391401]

I pulled that old keyboard out and removed the stabilized keys and saw no sign of corrosion or discoloration of the plastic (the set is a Signature Plastics Cream Cheese & Green).  Actually the key action was still buttery smooth after 8 to 10 years.  I'd be surprised if the grease causes corrosion on the metal parts (such as the stabilizer rod) as the grease is intended to be used inside of the bicycle bearing races of the bottom bracket and head tube.  Anyway - I'll probably continue to use it but understand that it's not suggested as a best practice

[iri]

five-figure cables

I'd rather invite live musicians every time I want music in my house

[bliss]

five-figure cables

I'd rather invite live musicians every time I want music in my house

You can invite Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Lana Del Rey over for a personal performance, maybe they are inclined to do that! I think in the long run it's better to play a record xD

[Leslieann]

five-figure cables

I'd rather invite live musicians every time I want music in my house

You can invite Sophie Ellis-Bextor or Lana Del Rey over for a personal performance, maybe they are inclined to do that! I think in the long run it's better to play a record xD

Both of which has not a single album with great dynamic range.
If you want to justify the cost and range of your equipment, at least pick an artist and album that takes advantage of it.

Loudness war database - http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list/dr/desc

[bliss]

Both of which has not a single album with great dynamic range.

It would be a grand mistake to rule out recordings because of their quality. You'd miss out.
Of course, you want to pick up the best sounding version, like XRCD or MFSL, if available.

And for the, uh, record, I do not own those $20k Kimber Select cables personally

[Leslieann]

Both of which has not a single album with great dynamic range.

It would be a grand mistake to rule out recordings because of their quality. You'd miss out.
Of course, you want to pick up the best sounding version, like XRCD or MFSL, if available.

What I said had nothing to do with music taste, simply in regards to sound quality.

Read up on the Loudness War, the media format means nothing if the sound engineer decided to crank it up. They've even been known to do it on re-mastered records, so even those aren't safe.

[bliss]

Read up on the Loudness War

Why do you presume I am not aware of the matter?

I picked those artists quite randomly, with the constraint that they must be among the living, so iri could actually invite them theoretically. And he is right: live music (unplugged) always sounds the best.