More weird Keyboard Science Discoveries.
As has been previously discussed elsewhere, sometimes a row of OEM keycaps will be significantly different from one OEM to the next.
And now I have found another example.
I replaced the lame OS keys of my CoolerMaster QFR keyboard with OS keys from WASDkeyboards.com. They are supposed to be the same height, shape and size. Only the thickness of the sidewalls was supposed to be different.
Eyeballing the keycaps from the outside they appear to be the same height and the same weird angly shape. But upon replacing just the OS keycaps with WASD OS keycaps I notice that the WASD keycaps are a bit higher. I don't have a mm-ometer handy, just some lame inchometer so I will estimate the height difference at 1mm, but hey, maybe its only 0.6mm, how do I know. In any case the height difference is obvious, you don't need to be looking for it to notice it. I wasn't looking for it. I just assumed they would be the same height but I immediately noticed the difference.
So I fiddled around with them for a while, took them off, looked at them and as near as I can tell there are actually 2 different heights for every keycap!
The Physical Height as measured while the keycap is sitting on a table.
The Riding Height as measured once the keycap is installed on a switch.
The Physical Height of the WASD and CoolerMaster keycaps seems to me to be the same.
The Riding Height is different though!
There are 2 possibilities for this:
A: The Keycap Stem (is that what it is called?) is different?
B: The depth of the hole inside the stem is different?
C: A combination of A & B.
Another thing I noticed was that 1 black crashpad cushioned the impact of a CoolerMaster Keycap but it did nothing to cushion the impact of the WASD keycap. The WASD keycap went *BANG* into the metal plate or switch or whatever it crashes into at the bottom. I fixed this by installing an extra crashpad. I always bottom out my modifier keys anyway and I always use double-crashpads on all modifier keys of all my keyboards.
I got this keyboard from The WhiteFireDragon Magic Keyboard Construction Company and had requested double-padding for all modifier keys but I guess he forgot.
The reason I got the keyboard from WhiteFireDragon was because I wanted a keyboard with an EasyModPlate(tm). Does this special plate have anything to do with the facts I have reported?
It can't affect anything right?
Before he shipped me the keyboard he got some of those special Korean Springs so I had him replace all my springs and lube everything. The Korean springs could not possibly affect the Riding Height could they?
(oh nvm, if they did affect the height they would affect every key equally, not differently for different manufacturers.)
The height difference isn't really bothering me because of the way I use modifier keys. But supposing I had ordered, for some weird reason, a random selection of alphabetical keys. Having my alphabetical keys go up-down-up-down with different heights all over the place would have bothered me.
If all rows of WASD keycaps have a higher ride than all rows of CoolerMaster keycaps then... that could be really awesome for me! I could maybe doublepad all my keys for a soft squishy harmless super-ergonomiacal keyboard without reducing travel distance too much.
The reason I have not double-padded my Rosewill alphabetical keys is because doing so reduces travel a lot.
I am just assuming that the other rows have different Riding Heights too. I don't feel well enough to test right now and I may forget about it later.
I will try to do more experiments later on both the CM QFR and the Rosewills.
