geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: colt-one on Wed, 19 March 2025, 13:01:29
-
I've never had a mechanical keyboard - used scissor switch boards for years and love the feel of them, but I have enough curiosity to try a mechanical if it's not more than $100 or so. After a lot of watching reviews and listening to switch sounds, I've finally found one I like (Keychron K5 max with brown switches) but still have some doubts. The plusses are that it's full size, low profile, looks good (I'll admit, this is a big part of the appeal) and from what I can tell, not too noisy. There's no way to know if I like the typing feel as much as the scissors until I actually use it for a while.
The dilemma is whether it's going to be reliable or not and whether to get the hot-swappable one. Reading about quality control problems on reddit and reading the thread here https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=104777.0 was really discouraging. I want a keyboard to be problem-free, but if there is a problem, it would be nice to just pop in a new switch. But apparently, there is a higher likelihood of failures with the swappable ones. People have different and strong opinions about this, but usually the arguments are coming from people who have experience with taking boards apart, soldering, etc. I don't, and thinking about doing it seems more of a hassle than a hobby. If I ended up loving the board, it's something I might try to learn and do to keep it working, but would rather avoid. Knowing that, would it be wiser for me to get the soldered or swappable?
Let's say there is a problem, how much is involved with a soldering repair of a model like the K5 (swap and non-swap) for someone who's never done it before?
-
if there is a problem, it would be nice to just pop in a new switch.
I have been in the hobby for years and several dozens of keyboards have passed through my hands, the majority of them 30+ years old. I could count the number of dead switches I have replaced on my fingers.
But since I have never had a "hot swap-able" keyboard I don't have firsthand knowledge. But I can guess that it could create an order of magnitude more problems than it solves.
-
But are dead switches the only thing to be concerned about? Seems like the biggest complaint people have is double typing of keys. I've been reading things like this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Keychron/comments/1jcz0k1/double_presses_on_certain_keys/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Keychron/comments/1ip03k0/comment/mhlga9b/
In the first link, he has a non-swappable board. The other one is a set of links to similar problems. I agree that there would seem to be fewer points of potential failure in a soldered board, but why is all this happening so frequently and is it something I could fix?