TaoBao Pink MX Clone Stems

[CPTBadAss]

To start this mini-review off, I’d like to wish everyone a happy new year! Hopefully you started your 2015 off right. I was lucky enough to head back to my hometown to spend time with my family and puppy. I also want to give a shoutout to nubbinator who loaned me this board so I could try it out. The pictures I took were awful so I will be borrowing nubbinator’s pictures of this board. All pictures here his work.

Anyways, I think that it’s safe to say that one of 2014’s biggest announcement was the advent of MX clone switches. There has been quite a few threads discussing Kailh and other clones. If you’re curious, I also wrote two reviews covering Kailh switches. The first was a Keycool 87 with Kailh Blues. The second was a Nixeus Moda with Kailh Browns.

Both of those reviews were positive. Turns out that just because they’re clones or compatible switches, doesn’t mean that they’re bad. But there is an undercurrent of distrust among the community that there are bad clones out there. I found the bad clones. I was seriously so excited to have found the worst MX switch I have ever tried, that I called HoffmanMyster and had a twenty minute phone call sharing the moment with him. To quote Louis CK “And it feels good, it feels good to have found bottom. And there’s a comfort in knowing that I’ve tried the worst MX-esque switches of my life.” These are awful switches. Terrible switches. They are everything the community was afraid of. What switches are they? Cherry MX clones from TaoBao: Pink MX Stems. 

So the setup for this board:
-   FaceW PCB
-   Abo Studio White Tops
-   GMK Dolch, Purple Mods, and Cyan Spacebar
-   Chinese/TaoBao Pink MX Clone Stems with 68g Gold Springs

Pros: The stems were in fact pink; just as they were advertised.

Cons: Everything else.

Supposedly the stems are supposed to be somewhere between MX Browns and MX Clears. For starters, regardless of the switch location, all of the switches feel gritty. It’s like someone rolled the stems in the street. Afterwards they reassembled the switch and sprinkled gravel inside. Seriously, the switches felt gritty with a lot of friction.  I have written in my notes that they felt “grindy”; as if the switches didn’t want to actuate at all. When the switches did work, they seemed to hover between Browns and 68g Linears. By far the worst offenders on this board were the modifiers. They would have two bottom outs: one was a stop halfway down which was very hard, the other was the proper bottom out.

I hated these switches. I hated them so much I messaged nubbinator in advance to ask him if I should post anything since these switches were so bad. He actually agreed that they were terrible and that he needed to change them out. So if you were thinking of trying these out? Don’t bother.

Thanks again to nubbinator for loaning these boards and taking these pictures. They’re obviously all his handiwork and I’m borrowing them since I took awful potato pictures.

[rowdy]

Negative reviews definitely worth it - to stop others from making the same mistake.

[hwood34]

damn, I wish they'd be good, the pink would look pretty sweet

[byker]

Function < Form in this case.  )

[nubbinator]

I actually put 55g springs in it to see if it would make them more tolerable.  Believe it or not, they were even worse with the 68g springs.  They would catch on the leaf, crunch even more, and all around felt god awful.

[Evo_Spec]

Thanks for the review!

looking forward to some gateron reviews =)

[CPTBadAss]

I'm still upset I missed out on that gateron switch tester but in massdrop.

And I don't even want to think about crunchier switches than the ones I tried nubbinator.

[n0rvig]

Thanks for the review. Were the switches any less gritty without the white tops?

[Sniping]

Thanks for the review. Were the switches any less gritty without the white tops?

The switch tops shouldn't affect the feel.

[n0rvig]

Thanks for the review. Were the switches any less gritty without the white tops?

The switch tops shouldn't affect the feel.

I've also got some white tops and they do affect the feel. I saw Ivan mention using a razor blade on the sliders to clean up any plastic leftover from the mould. That kind of cleanup might fix up  these pink stems too. 

[SpAmRaY]

Any thoughts on what causes them to be so grindy? Is it the material, mold, tolerance? Maybe all of those?

[nubbinator]

Any thoughts on what causes them to be so grindy? Is it the material, mold, tolerance? Maybe all of those?

Having looked at them, I think the tactile leg is too short and it catches on the leaf.

[berserkfan]

any chance these can be improved by some daring mods? At this point I think you have nothing to lose (sounds as though the switches are really rock bottom).

EG is it possible to clip out the tactile leg? You only need one of two legs to trigger actuation of the leafs right?

[ideus]

I cannot think in any reason to try an MX clone if they are harder to find than MX, the cost savings are negligible and their performance is at best on par with MX SWs.

[CPTBadAss]

Any thoughts on what causes them to be so grindy? Is it the material, mold, tolerance? Maybe all of those?

I think it's a bit of all of those as well as the inherent design flaw nubbinator pointed out.

Thanks for the review. Were the switches any less gritty without the white tops?

The switch tops shouldn't affect the feel.

They do affect the feel since the stem will touch the switch top in a few places.

any chance these can be improved by some daring mods? At this point I think you have nothing to lose (sounds as though the switches are really rock bottom).

EG is it possible to clip out the tactile leg? You only need one of two legs to trigger actuation of the leafs right?

I'm not sure, it wasn't my board to mess with.

[tp4tissue]

Well.. they're Gritty now..  But I've gotten some MX-Red and Blacks that were very gritty too.. and they smoothed out over time..

We don't yet know if these will smooth out..

I find this assessment premature, as it pertains to a feature that may well change over time..

If it were something more of a design flaw, sure, strikes-against.. 

But this is NOT that..

--at least NOT YET.

[nubbinator]

Tp, you're wrong.  I've felt gritty blacks and reds, these are nothing like those.  I call them crunchy for a reason, you can literally feel them catching on the leaf.  No amount of use will make them feel better. It is a totally different feeling than gritty linear switches.

[feizor]

Thanks for the mini review CPTBA, I've seen those stems on Taobao and was curious about them.

Slightly off topic but are clear housing gaterons end of production now?

[Dihedral]

I thought a switch with a sort of 'medium' tactile bump would be interesting.. but this is the most damming MX clone review I've seen.

[tp4tissue]

Tp, you're wrong.  I've felt gritty blacks and reds, these are nothing like those.  I call them crunchy for a reason, you can literally feel them catching on the leaf.  No amount of use will make them feel better. It is a totally different feeling than gritty linear switches.

I've had gritty clears too..

I still say it's much too early to say for sure..

Because, the only people that have these keys already own a billion keyboards..

so, that further's the possibility that the boards arn't getting the time to break-in..


Assuming what you're saying is TRUE, that it's sooo-bad that it's catching on the leaf..

we'd still need to disassemble it to see whether it's a plastic spurs problem or due to roughness, or due to the leaf being imprecisely cut.. etc..


This is too heavy hand a brush off is my point..

[nubbinator]

Tp, they're stems I added to Cherry housings that had no problems with their native stems.  It's not the housing, the leaf, or any other part than the stem leg.  Hitting the cap near the bottom exacerbates the issue and makes them feel even worse.  The leg just isn't long enough.

[tp4tissue]

Tp, they're stems I added to Cherry housings that had no problems with their native stems.  It's not the housing, the leaf, or any other part than the stem leg.  Hitting the cap near the bottom exacerbates the issue and makes them feel even worse.  The leg just isn't long enough.

the leg's not long enough?  so the bottom of the leg doesn't clear the nub part on the leaf?

[Roibhilin]

Tp, you're wrong.

[vivalarevolución]

At least the switches look great!

[rowdy]

At least the switches look great!

Not that you'd ever see them, apart from when switching keycaps.

[hwood34]

Thanks for the mini review CPTBA, I've seen those stems on Taobao and was curious about them.

Slightly off topic but are clear housing gaterons end of production now?

Still in production

[Tetriswizard]

Shame that it's the stem that is the problem. Are there other colours and are they bad too?

[GenKaan]

That bad huh? Damn, rough stuff poor Chinese
Guess cutting corners can have its disadvantages

[CPTBadAss]

Shame that it's the stem that is the problem. Are there other colours and are they bad too?

The thing is I'm pretty sure you can just make whatever colors you want. But I think there's a few colors available. I don't really get on TaoBao so I'm the wrong person to ask. I don't know if they're bad because I haven't tried them but I'd love to try more out.

[nubbinator]

AFAIK, they were only in pink and orange.

[Den441]

Nice write-up. I thought about buying these at one point. They sure are a pretty shade of pink, and they certainly look good on camera. It is too bad they don't work well. There is just something about cherry stems in non-standard colors like pink or purple that spark my curiosity.

[nubbinator]

I just tried these in a Gateron Clear housing.  They may actually be okay in to use that way, I have to desolder the board and try.