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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: ricercar on Wed, 16 June 2010, 01:42:13

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: ricercar on Wed, 16 June 2010, 01:42:13

My spanish 11900 and TG3 BL82 have Cherry blacks that are noticably less stiff than the blacks on my older 11900 and TG3 BLT. For example I can type on the BL82 tenderly without bottoming out, and it's quite silent; I have to bear down hard on the BLT to type, bottoming out most often, making it too loud for when others are sleeping in the same room.

Has anyone else experienced older Cherry blacks being stiffer than more recently manufactured blacks? Do they get stiffer with age? This is exclusively a qualitative assessment. When I have sufficent rip-weights, I'll do a quantitative assessment.

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: Infinite north on Wed, 16 June 2010, 02:33:24

I don't know how springs could get stiffer with age.

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: clickclack on Wed, 16 June 2010, 03:45:49

I dunno, maybe it's the little switch gobblins or something.

I have some older cherry black keyboards that are a bit stiffer than my newer ones too. I have a few ideas about this...

I have an old WYSE board and it was the most awful board I have ever typed on. So I lifted one of the keycaps and noticed it was usuing cherry blacks. It has alot of friciton and took a ton of force to depress if hit even slightly off center. I washed some of the switchs and retested and it was a little bit smoother, but not significantly. I have since received a number of WYSE boards and they do not suffer as much from this problem. I also noticed the the tooling marks and switch housing is ever so slightly different on these boards compared to more recently manufactered switches.

So who knows, but I am still going with switch gobblins! =P

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: Mental Hobbit on Wed, 16 June 2010, 11:33:02

Quote from: ripster;193647

See the dabs of grease on this spanking new Cherry MX?

You mean on the tabs of the upper contact? Don't really understand what grease would do there. I did stem/spring swaps on several hundred switches, and never felt any hint of grease on the sliders. Also, I own several 15-20 years old boards which must have been heavily used by the shininess of their keycaps, yet feel perfectly smooth.

Edit: Grr @ Infinite north. ;P

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: Infinite north on Wed, 16 June 2010, 11:55:34

Quote from: Mental Hobbit;193691

perfectly snooth.

:happy:
Sometimes misspelling a word makes it better. I imagine it as a mixed drink of some sort.

Where the stems come in contact with the switch plate can be greased. the amount is pretty small, it would be easy to not even notice it.

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: ricercar on Wed, 16 June 2010, 18:13:45

I'm just happy my fingers weren't lying to me. One order of grease on the old blacks, coming right up.

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: audioave10 on Wed, 16 June 2010, 20:01:48

or this one...

(http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/obj/nrc-cnrc/images/photos/090921_kaboom1.jpg)

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: spolia optima on Wed, 16 June 2010, 23:24:26

back in my day black mx actually meant something I tell you hwat
damn kids today with your rollerblades and your mx reds and your lady googles
i blame the liberal media

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: ricercar on Thu, 17 June 2010, 00:02:53

Hey Spo! I have your 2-shots on Cherry blacks again. Mmmmm like butter.

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: spolia optima on Thu, 17 June 2010, 00:09:55

sup ricercar
lol thx i forgot about that!
despite being ABS, i really dig those 2 shot Wyse caps I sent ya. The font and color are both deliciously oldschool.

Title: Cherry blacks - weaker from the factory these days?
Post by: spolia optima on Thu, 17 June 2010, 00:13:24

also, very impressed with your post count. you got it bad huh? the mechanical swichosis?