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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Jonnyswboy on Sun, 10 May 2015, 08:57:52

Title: Noob question.
Post by: Jonnyswboy on Sun, 10 May 2015, 08:57:52

Sorry in advance for my noobish questions.

I have a Das Keyboard 4 Professional clicky and the two of the switches don't seem to click like the others. Is that fixable? Do I need a new keyswitch? Also my spacebar feels like it has a much higher actuation force than the other keys, is that due to the wire guides? Can I loosten them or something? If not can I put a brown spring in the blue switch to lower the force?

Sorry for so many questions, I'm new to mechanical keyboards.

Thanks!

Title: Re: Noob question.
Post by: rowdy on Mon, 11 May 2015, 05:50:22

Welcome to Geekhack!

You have mostly MX blue switches.  It is possible for one or two on a keyboard to have a different or muted click - I have a Ducky Shine that had a similar problem.

You can totally mash the key - press it thousands of times to loosen the internal bits somewhat.  That approach worked for me.

Or you can replace the switch with a known working switch.  That is a lot more work and involves desoldering the old switch and soldering a new switch in.  Made slightly easier for you as the DAS does not have backlighting.

Or you could ask your supplier if they would exchange it if it is still under warranty as a couple of switches don't click, although they will probably refuse as the switches actually work, they just don't click.

You might have a MX green switch under the space bar.  Both of my Ducky Shines with MX blues have an MX green under the space bar.  MX greens click like blues, but are much stiffer.

If you really want to replace the spring, you'd almost certainly have to desolder the switches as you cannot remove the switch top with the plate, so you' need to remove the switch completely from the board.  In that case you might as well replace the whole switch with something more to your liking.

Title: Re: Noob question.
Post by: Jonnyswboy on Mon, 11 May 2015, 13:17:38

Thanks. I got one of the keys to click by mashing it a few thousand times. No luck yet with the second one.

As for the spacebar, I found that it is a blue switch and when I removed the key cap and put a small key on it, it felt fine. So it must be the Cherry stabilizers. I've heard cherry stabilizers are mushy unless you mod them, so either that's it, or they need to be lubed.

Title: Re: Noob question.
Post by: azhdar on Tue, 12 May 2015, 05:03:34

Yeah you want to mod your cherry stabs by clipping them.
Search for "clipping cherry stabilizers" you should find a few video and infos on the mod.