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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: thesentinel on Wed, 26 February 2014, 10:41:46
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Hello. About a month ago I bought my first mechanical board with mx red switches. While double tapping I noticed sometimes I double tap so fast that the switch didn't rise enough to reach the actuation point before I tapped on it again. I tried riding the activation point but that took way too much brain power.
tl;dr: is there a way to make my red switches go up faster without requiring more force to press?
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Short answer: maybe lube?
Long answer: not really. To make the switch go up faster, it would need a higher force spring. And obviously, a higher force spring is going to require more force to press.
The reason I suggested lube as my short answer is the thinking that, maybe if you eliminate some of the friction, the key may go up SLIGHTLY faster.
Other than that, your only other option is to swap springs and deal with the heavier switches.
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you are a very fast double tapper!
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A few things I can think of:
(1) get a stiffer spring but cut a few loops off the ends to make them shorter. For example, you could get springs from MX black switches, or some Korean "65G" springs. This would leave the beginning of the keypress quite light (depending on how much spring you cut) but make it heavier at the bottom than the stock MX red springs.
(2) Add lubricant. This won’t make them springier, but should make it easier for the spring to push the slider back up.
(3) Do something like a “trampoline mod”: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=50632.0
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> get rid of reds
> purchase topre
> live happy.
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A few things I can think of:
(1) get a stiffer spring but cut a few loops off the ends to make them shorter. For example, you could get springs from MX black switches, or some Korean "65G" springs. This would leave the beginning of the keypress quite light (depending on how much spring you cut) but make it heavier at the bottom than the stock MX red springs.
I dont' think this will work. From the force graph mapping the slope of the stock cherry springs they all seemed to have a bout the same slope with the exception of the clears. They are a touch shorter with less coils, so they will have a steeper slope on the force curve. They are almost exactly on par with springs from blacks at activation point but then ramp up a bit higher than blacks at bottom out.
For the op, a stiffer spring is about the only way to get what you are looking for.
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Melvang: note, the primary 2 relevant features of a standard-ish spring, at least w/r/t MX and similar switches, are (1) stiffness (spring constant), and (2) length.
The shorter the rest length of the spring is, the less it needs to be compressed when the switch is in the un-pressed position, which has the effect of making the top part of the key-press lighter. The shorter you make it, the lighter the top of the keypress gets (the bottom of the press also gets lighter, but we can compensate for that w/ a stiffer spring).
If you have a reference spring, let’s call it Spring A, and you find a spring that's a bit stiffer, let's call it Spring B, but initially the same length, then you can cut loops out of Spring B until the top part of the keypress feels about the same as the top part of Spring A, and what you’ll get is a spring that's similar at the top but requires more force at the bottom.
This doesn’t seem controversial... it's just basic spring physics.
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I dont' think this will work. From the force graph mapping the slope of the stock cherry springs they all seemed to have a bout the same slope with the exception of the clears. They are a touch shorter with less coils, so they will have a steeper slope on the force curve. They are almost exactly on par with springs from blacks at activation point but then ramp up a bit higher than blacks at bottom out.
For the op, a stiffer spring is about the only way to get what you are looking for.
Well, I can think of one other thing you could try, but it would likely be miserable.
You could always shim the inside of the switch where the spring drops over and then cut the spring a little shorter to bring the weight of the spring back down or toss 45 or 55g springs in instead of the stock springs. That will make the total actuation length shorter and should result in a quicker return, but I imagine it wouldn't feel great.
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What about O-Rings? They would reduce the distance between bottoming out and the actuation point (slightly).
*Disclaimer* I'm not experienced myself, but hey, it's a suggestion
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O-rings make the reds feel like a cushion.
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O rings will reduce total key travel to bottom out as well.
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What about O-Rings? They would reduce the distance between bottoming out and the actuation point (slightly).
*Disclaimer* I'm not experienced myself, but hey, it's a suggestion
I have thought about o-rings before, I was worried they'd make my reds feel mushy, Though at the moment when I bottom out it feels like I'm jamming my fingers on a hard metal plate, so who knows. Either way it's better to know what o-rings feel like than to not know what they feel like. THese are the ones you get, right?
http://www.amazon.com/Cherry-Rubber-O-Ring-Switch-Dampeners/dp/B00AZQ3966/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1393548389&sr=8-10&keywords=o-rings
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What if you try blacks?
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These are the [o-rings] you get, right?
cf. http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=40227.0
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O-rings make the reds feel like a cushion.
really,i want try if so with blacks Cloud of boobs
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I am confused now, does cushion equals boobs?
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I would just get MX Black, even though it does require more force.
Reds are waay too light for me.
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I would just get MX Black, even though it does require more force.
Reds are waay too light for me.
They're, force-wise, more "springy", so it makes perfect sense to me.
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Red switches with clear-switch springs, or black switches are okay, but perhaps slightly stiffer than the OP here would want. But I think a clear or black spring with a few loops cut off of it (try cutting off different amounts until you get the weight you want) would do the trick. Then again, cutting down a bunch of springs is pretty tedious, so maybe not worth it.
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Short answer: maybe lube?
Long answer: not really. To make the switch go up faster, it would need a higher force spring. And obviously, a higher force spring is going to require more force to press.
The reason I suggested lube as my short answer is the thinking that, maybe if you eliminate some of the friction, the key may go up SLIGHTLY faster.
Other than that, your only other option is to swap springs and deal with the heavier switches.
I'm wonder why you back-pedaled on the Lube part. Your intuition was correct.If we draw a free body diagram of the forces involved when the key bounces back up, you would have the spring force going up in the y-axis and a small friction force going down in the y-axis.
Adding Lube will minimize this friction force(although it may be negligible in terms of upwards velocity), it would still help.