PBT keycaps sticky after 9 months

[Slusho64]

My Ducky doubleshot PBT keycaps are sticky and a little shiny after normal use for 9 months. I bought a second set so I've replaced them and I have the old ones in a baggie. I asked some people on Discord and they said to use a denture cleaning tablet in water for an hour. I tried that on three of the keycaps and it made no difference. Is this permanent or is there some way of making them not sticky again?

[Justintoxicated]

what do you mean by sticky?

[Slusho64]

what do you mean by sticky?

They don't feel dry. They feel sticky. Like the spacebar feels like that more where I usually hit it with my finger. I know ABS gets shiny and somewhat sticky after a few months but I've always heard PBT does not so I thought I'd be able to fix it by cleaning.

[sncbraxsc2]

You know how if you go down a slide wearing shorts, sometimes your skin will stick to it? It can happen when you go down a waterslide on your back too..

I think a similar phenomena can be experienced with shined caps. Does that sound like what you experience in terms of stickiness?

[Slusho64]

I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from. Sticky keycaps is common for ABS. I'll describe it more, though. If I rub my finger over a new keycap, it's pretty smooth (low friction). If I rub it over the older ones, the friction is higher. It's kind of gooey feeling. Like hard plastic vs soft touch/rubberized (not that much obviously).

[sncbraxsc2]

I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from. Sticky keycaps is common for ABS. I'll describe it more, though. If I rub my finger over a new keycap, it's pretty smooth (low friction). If I rub it over the older ones, the friction is higher. It's kind of gooey feeling. Like hard plastic vs soft touch/rubberized (not that much obviously).

I think this is due to the loss of texture (shine). More surface contact area means larger total adhesion force.

You could try sandblasting them to create some texture where its been lost

https://imgur.com/a/3xreN

[ArchDill]

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[Justintoxicated]

lol I thought he may have meant that the key was sticking (not returning).

Sounds like the key caps are not PNB to me.

have pictures?

[Slusho64]

It really doesn't show up well in pictures and it's only really the spacebar that you can kind of see a difference. Ducky is well known for making doubleshot PBT so idk how it could be that they're not PBT.

[tp4tissue]

Where's Noisyturtle,  I bet' he'd have a witty comment about this..

[Ptolemy]

Stick as in the keycaps have a sticky texture or do they physically stick to the board and switch? For the sticky texture you could sandblast them but if they are physically sticking than I would get a new set or it may be a problem with the switches themselves.

[Slusho64]

To reiterate, it's the surface of the keycaps, not the switches sticking. I'm going to try sandblasting because apparently we own a sandblaster.

[ThoughtArtist]

WTF, the point of using PBT is to avoid this. Ducky caps look shady anyway. There's no telling what they're really made of. Fentanyl anyone?
/

[tp4tissue]

WTF, the point of using PBT is to avoid this. Ducky caps look shady anyway. There's no telling what they're really made of. Fentanyl anyone?
/

what? hahahahahhahaha... If it was Fentanyl, we'd order 100000x and make bank..  breaking bad yo.. bit(h!!

[ander]

Have you considered giving up the deep-fried Snickers bars?

[Slusho64]

Have you considered giving up the deep-fried Snickers bars?

I am a clean freak

[jcoffin1981]

PBT is pretty resistant to most solvents of plastic.  Ducky does in fact make some boards with ABS keycaps.  Sounds like this is what you have.  I don't think sandblasting is worth your time and I don't know how happy you will be with the end product anyway.  PBT keycap sets can be had for starting around $24.99.

[Slusho64]

They sell them as doubleshot PBT.

[Photoelectric]

Could it be some sort of anti-bacterial coating wearing out and going bad?  I remember reading about Tai Hao PBT caps coming with a coating that affected keycap feel.

[ander]

Have you considered giving up the deep-fried Snickers bars?

I am a clean freak

That's good to hear. Many people sit down to type without even thinking about washing their hands—then they're surprised when their keebs end up looking like Marine snipers. (I thought that was a particularly colorful metaphor.)

[Puddsy]

Could it be some sort of anti-bacterial coating wearing out and going bad?  I remember reading about Tai Hao PBT caps coming with a coating that affected keycap feel.

this is also what i was thinking, especially since it's ducky pbt caps

[rowdy]

Could it be some sort of anti-bacterial coating wearing out and going bad?  I remember reading about Tai Hao PBT caps coming with a coating that affected keycap feel.

this is also what i was thinking, especially since it's ducky pbt caps

I didn't know Ducky put a coating on their keycaps too.

Tai Hao do, or did, perhaps they still do unless you run a GB and explicitly request them not to include the coating.

[Slusho64]

Ducky makes no mention of a coating. And I'm not sure how that would work. The coating rubs off, leaving the plastic, which for some reason is shiny/sticky without the coating? Why would PBT feel that way without a coating?

[Photoelectric]

Could be that the coating doesn’t simply rub off but interacts with finger oil and whatever cleaning chemicals you use, resulting in the sticky feeling.  Do you or anyone else vape near your keyboard?  Do you apply any kind of cream or antibacterial solution  to your hands?

[Slusho64]

Do you or anyone else vape near your keyboard?  Do you apply any kind of cream or antibacterial solution  to your hands?

Nope

[jamster]

My daily driver board for the past 3 years has been using Tai Hao caps. The spacebar has a shiny patch where I hit it, but nowhere on the board would I describe as feeling 'sticky.' It's higher friction on the smooth part if I run my finger across it, but that's to be expected, and it does not match the "soft touch/rubberized" description. Same with all of my keyboards, some of which are decades old.

So far it's unclear whether the OP is describing an artifact of a purely mechanical nature (smooth vs textured plastic) or some chemical change.