Author Topic: Top housings too tight  (Read 1622 times)

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Offline nuht

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  • Posts: 1
Top housings too tight
« on: Wed, 26 May 2021, 05:06:09 »
Hi all,

Recently I ordered some boba u4t to combine with my halo stems to create Holy Bobas, unfortunately it seems as if about 20% of the boba top housings are too tight for the stems to seamlessly travel through. The switch will get stuck at the bottom-out and I need about a hair in extra clearance. Is there some sort of way to create that clearance without impacting the functionality? I was thinking if there was somehow to shrink or expand either the stem or top housing then all would be good. And no, lube was not enough to fix it :(

Offline Volny

  • Posts: 235
Re: Top housings too tight
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 26 May 2021, 19:41:28 »
I also made holy bobas recently (with kaihl polia stems), and I had the same problem. If you take the tight ones and swap the pieces around with other tight ones, sometimes you get lucky and the new combinations work well.

However, you need to watch out for more than just the stem getting stuck. I found that even when they weren't getting stuck, they would often take longer to return than normal switches. This can make them feel 'gummy' and is especially a problem for keys you do quick repeat taps on (eg. Cursors, backspace, numbers...most things, really). It's also a harder problem to detect right away. Sometimes the switch seems fine out in the open but then the added pressure of being installed in a plate tightens it too much.

You can mitigate this slightly with stronger springs, to try and force the switch back up more quickly. And I guess you could try a nail file on some of the pieces. But I came to the conclusion that Holy Bobas just weren't worth the trouble except for certain isolated keys.

The sturdiness and lack of stem wobble is fantastic for keycaps that are otherwise too loose (they've enabled one or two of my artisan/novelty keycaps to go from horribly wobbly to perfectly usable!) But I don't envy anyone who wants to deck out an entire keyboard with them.
« Last Edit: Thu, 27 May 2021, 02:44:43 by Volny »