geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: Elikstar on Sun, 25 December 2016, 15:07:08
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I've been looking for answers to this question for ages through various sites and forums and so far I haven't found any helpful information. I don't want to sound stupid, but is it a good idea to use unfragranced mineral oil as lubricant on Cherry MX Black Switches? If the answer is no I'd like to know why not and if there are any other cheap alternatives that I could use. Thanks.
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I'd go with something else for two reasons. The more concrete is that mineral oil will evaporate over time. The other is that various keyboard folk have spent lots of time with lubricants and have never ended up at mineral oil, which is easy to acquire and seems like an obvious pick if it worked well.
Most will recommend a mix of krytox grease and oil (I use GPL 205 and 103), but I'd recommend buying a premixed kit from a keyboard site. I believe techkeys.us sells it, as does zealpc.net.
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Yeah, that makes sense. I'll look into the Krytox mix, thanks. :)
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Er, we are talking about keyboards here, right? Just wanted to clarify that.
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I'm not sure mineral oil is a lubricant Oo .
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the viscosity is too low, it'd most likely just roll off and pool at the lowest point..
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I've been looking for answers to this question for ages through various sites and forums and so far I haven't found any helpful information.
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Keyboard+lubes
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I think the oil is going to migrate everywhwere except where you want it to stay, making it not a good choice.
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People avoid mineral oil because it might not be friendly to plastics.
Even with the Krytox stuff, you need to be careful not to get it anywhere - that does not go away by wiping or rubbing with a solvent.