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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Morbii on Tue, 18 October 2022, 03:06:37
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Is there a non-monetary reason to solder switches directly instead of using Mill-Max sockets?
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Here are some reasons I can think of:
- some cases have very limited space between the PCB and the case and the longer mil max sockets might not fit
- mil max sockets only work if your keyboard has a plate
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Thanks.
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Sockets won't fit into every PCB made for soldering. They have tighter tolerances for fitting, and on some keyboard PCBs the holes are too tight.
Inserting and pulling switches wears the switch legs and the socket, and you also risk bending the leg if you don't put it in correctly. Worn-out sockets/switches cause chattering.
If you know you're not going to swap switches, soldering is more secure.
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I mill-maxed my Prime_Meridian, and I love it.
That being said, I damaged the PCB to the point where I had to buy a second one. accidentally ripped up one of the PCB traces, and had to solder a wire from the trace to the side of the mill-max socket to get it to work.
[attach=1]
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Thanks, everyone.
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There are more reasons than that. Millmax prevent your switches from resting directly against the pcb as they are meant to. Sound quality and rigidity are what you lose in that case. They also make your plate/pcb assembly less solid, which is obvious, but why does it matter? Your stabilizers are on the pcb, but the assembly is held up by the plate (top mount/ gasket mount), yes? So what is holding up the pcb? Friction. Each millmax socket holding on to each switch pin for dear life. If you press on a long stabilized key with fewer pins around it holding the pcb up (your spacebar), you can push the pcb down away from the assembly enough to contact the metal of your case and cause problems, or even separate the switches enough to stop them registering, though not many cases have that much free space. Millmax are best suited for keyboards that have a pcb supported from underneath, like a tray mount, or my tkc1800 which clamps the whlole assembly together from both sides. Now if you have a top-mount that you absolutely need to millmax, and you're not concerned with ruining your sound, or having a ramshackle barely held together keyboard, then you can place rubber bumpons or maybe some strips of foam under the pcb to prevent it from falling down.
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There are more reasons than that. Millmax prevent your switches from resting directly against the pcb as they are meant to. Sound quality and rigidity are what you lose in that case. They also make your plate/pcb assembly less solid, which is obvious, but why does it matter? Your stabilizers are on the pcb, but the assembly is held up by the plate (top mount/ gasket mount), yes? So what is holding up the pcb? Friction. Each millmax socket holding on to each switch pin for dear life. If you press on a long stabilized key with fewer pins around it holding the pcb up (your spacebar), you can push the pcb down away from the assembly enough to contact the metal of your case and cause problems, or even separate the switches enough to stop them registering, though not many cases have that much free space. Millmax are best suited for keyboards that have a pcb supported from underneath, like a tray mount, or my tkc1800 which clamps the whlole assembly together from both sides. Now if you have a top-mount that you absolutely need to millmax, and you're not concerned with ruining your sound, or having a ramshackle barely held together keyboard, then you can place rubber bumpons or maybe some strips of foam under the pcb to prevent it from falling down.
Ahhh, thank you. This is the kind of thing I was definitely wondering about. Looks like I'm just going to solder them on directly.
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Another pretty obvious one is that MillMax just plainly costs more than just soldering it directly to the PCB. Also some minor sound difference in some cases.