"Quiet Click" switches - ongoing review...

[alaricljs]

We're going to start with a quick impression I posted elsewhere:

Well, I just got a couple hundred of the Matias Quiet switches and stuck some in the battered carcass of a 1087XM.  These are very quiet switches.  In an alu case like a KMAC they'd be dead silent.

They are nicely tactile.  Doing a head to head against blue MX, the blue will move a little at the tactile point of the Matias, and then not budge again until the Matias is bottomed.  You can fully depress a brown switch before the Matias budges at all.

As someone who really likes MX browns, these may be a little too firm.  I'm going to give it more than a few hours to figure that out.  However, swapping the XM green springs in, it is hard to distinguish from MX ergo clears.

So having said that and continued to type on this silly Ducky remnant (seriously, it's the plate and PCB sitting on a bit of foam)....  The "Quiet Click" doesn't click at all, it's virtually silent, and due to the dampers in the sliders there is very little noise at the bottom or the top of the stroke.  Due to this crappy 1087XM my stabilized keys rattle like crazy, the space bar being the worst.  Without that noise this would be quiet like a rubber dome.  The switches are highly tactile, as I had mentioned comparing them to MX Clears.  They are so tactile that I don't see not bottoming them out when typing.  But this is coming from someone that bottoms out as a preference anyhow.

I'm cautiously optimistic that I could go for these switches on my daily driver.  Obviously they are still firmer than the browns, but it seems I have already gotten used to it.  A few days of work should answer that question.  The biggest loss I would face really is the key caps   I really do like my Cherry profile PBTs with the space bar reversed.  It's the spacebar I notice the most, but then these Ducky ABS caps are textured most similarly to PBT and haven't been used much yet so I would think I'll be missing the durability of PBT soon enough.

So I am looking forward to see what key cap options Matias will be stocking in the future and custom boards made with these switches.

I'll be continuing this post with more as time goes on.

[Burz]

I got this crazy idea...

What if Matias made their switches with an MX key mounting stem instead of the Alps?

[pasph]

Or simply get an adapter
http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/cherry-to-alps-adapters-t4934.html

[Batmann]

This is very promising,
if these adaptors are "released" I would definitely glue them into the switch so it doesn't waggle
I really need a quiet board for night gaming sessions if I want to keep peace at home!

[alaricljs]

Well, my issue with these adapters is that they add height. 

MrI's intention as I read it, is to move on to modelling a replacement Alps slider with MX cap interface.  I wish him lots of luck.  Looking at one of each switch there's not that much technically preventing it.  Part of the stem on an Alps interfaces to the sliders inside the switch tho.  Stability may be compromised.

[Batmann]

Well, my issue with these adapters is that they add height. 

Now you say it that's a real pb, I jumped on conclusion too quickly
increased height will definitely be a no go...
Hope the slider project works out well and also that it will be compatible with matias switches

[alaricljs]

So my hands have told me that these switches are too stiff.  I still consider them quite nice and do enjoy typing on them for short periods, but definitely too stiff for me.  Now to put this in context I am coming from 2 years of typing on MX browns and I can feel the tactility of them.

Soooo, I did a full spring swap between the XMs that came out of the original Ducky carcass.  2 white switches were for caps/num and have slightly stiffer springs than the greens.  I stuck those in space and Esc.  The rest of the board is the green springs. 

It's pretty easy to get the switches open when already mounted, however the inconsistency of the holes in the Ducky plate made some of them difficult.  The XM springs are smaller in diameter than the Matias springs so they perch on top of the seat peg in the bottom housing.  This makes re-springing a built board difficult since of course they don't stay there.  You have to stick the spring in the stem and with the PCB perpendicular to your desk slide it all together.

And now I have an Alps board that feels a whole hell of a lot like ergo clears.

[daerid]

Interesting... this is exactly what I was thinking of doing with my 1087XM (black).

[alaricljs]

So having typed on this for a couple days, the lighter springs are for me a definite improvement.  While the switches now can still be compared to ergo-clear it's quite obvious that the tactile point is a narrower higher peak.  It's snappy where I would describe ergo clear as mushy.

On the one hand this make me happy... It's really a nice switch.  On the other hand I has a sad since it requires manual labor and a source of replacement springs.

[dante]

just for giggles have you tried removing the tactile leaf to see how it is as a linear switch?

[alaricljs]

I hate linear, so my answer is... yuck, linear!

[jacobolus]

I just got a bunch of these, and I have to say, I'm impressed. They feel very similar to complicated orange Alps switches (but without the plastic hitting plastic sounds), and quite a bit better (more sharply tactile) than the dampened complicated cream Alps switches from an Apple Extended Keyboard II. We’ll see if any of their feeling wears off with use / age, but at least when they’re new, these switches are great!

The one possible downside I can imagine vs. the orange alps switches is that the orange switches have a little metal leaf holding each side of the switch, whereas the Matias quiet switches just have one on one side, and the metal on the contact side is a smaller piece and doesn't exert as much pressure on the switch [typical of complicated vs. simple Alps switches]. This might make a bit of difference in forward/back stability as the switch goes up and down. It doesn’t seem like too much of an issue here though; the difference doesn’t stand out. I’m guessing that molding to tight tolerances might help a bit with that [but I’m not at all an expert here].

I’m making some custom alps keyboard projects, and if I make a version to carry around out in public, I’ll definitely opt for these switches.

* * *

It’s slightly off the subject of these switches in particular, but I wonder, has anyone tried putting some kind of padding on the top of the switch housing [not the slider, but the other part], as a way to even further dampen any plastic-on-plastic sound that might arise from the keycap bottom hitting the switch housing top (e.g. by using those stickers that some folks stick in the middle of cherry switch housings)? O-rings don’t really work with Alps switches/caps, but I think some kind of damper here might make a difference. I’ll try to do some testing sometime soon.

[jacobolus]

just for giggles have you tried removing the tactile leaf to see how it is as a linear switch?

I tried this for you. It works, but I don’t think it works particularly well: without the tactile leaf to hold the slider in, it becomes noticeably less stable.

[grav3serker]

I just got a V60MTS-Q and I absolutely love these switches. So much tactile feedback compared to my MX Browns. I especially like how short the travel is compared to the MX switches. They're crazy quiet and extremely comfortable.

Now we need more people to see the light so we can get some more cap sets and Artisans made for these!

Edit: I used some coins to see how much force is required to actuate the switch, and it's about 67g.