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Author Topic: Switch Life  (Read 1577 times)

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Offline hwood34

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Switch Life
« on: Sun, 16 March 2014, 12:44:49 »
I saw that one of the two major selling points for the new Razer switches is the fact that they are rated for about 10 million more presses than your average switch, and I wondered, has anyone actually used a switch to a point where they weren't usable or felt too bad to use? I see vintage switches that just have a "numbed" tactile feel, but I mean totally nonfunctional.
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Offline riotonthebay

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #1 on: Sun, 16 March 2014, 12:49:37 »
I've never heard of an MX switch failing from normal use.

Alps switches however will start double registering, I've heard, after years of use.
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Offline BlueBär

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #2 on: Sun, 16 March 2014, 12:53:42 »
Usually with time a bit of dirt gets into the switches and the spring gets weaker, but nothing that is not repairable. Dirt within the switches can make them feel mushy and scratchy. However I only experienced this with really old boards that were probably just collecting dust in some forgotten corner.

Apart from that, I call BS on the 10m more actuations. They say "up to" for a reason...
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Offline rowdy

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #3 on: Sun, 16 March 2014, 14:08:34 »
Other components (cable, controller, case) usually fail before the switches.

Which is why you get so many people buying old Cherry keyboards and harvesting the switches.
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Offline False_Dmitry_II

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #4 on: Sun, 16 March 2014, 14:28:31 »
I think they more do the switch harvesting for alleged better quality and/or to have them in a more modern board than just because failure of other parts.

One of the orange alps switches on my M0116 wasn't registering when I got it, so I just opened it up and bent the contact the opposite way it from the direction it goes when actuating, and now it works fine. I'm not really sure what it would take to cause total irreparable failure, short of cheating.
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Offline jacobolus

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #5 on: Sun, 16 March 2014, 15:15:58 »
Quote from: riotonthebay on Sun, 16 March 2014, 12:49:37
Alps switches however will start double registering, I've heard, after years of use.
As False_Dmitry_II says, it’s pretty easy to fix an Alps switch that starts acting up. You just have to figure out what's happened inside the switch and restore it to normal. Usually that's just cleaning some dirt out, or bending the switch leaf and/or tactile/click leaf back to their original shape.
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Offline blackbox

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #6 on: Mon, 17 March 2014, 01:19:55 »
Even if its true that they can withstand 10 million more actuations, what difference does it make? After 50 million clicks the switch is not the first thing to fail/wear down.
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Offline dorkvader

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Re: Switch Life
« Reply #7 on: Mon, 17 March 2014, 01:24:28 »
Quote from: blackbox on Mon, 17 March 2014, 01:19:55
Even if its true that they can withstand 10 million more actuations, what difference does it make? After 50 million clicks the switch is not the first thing to fail/wear down.

Exactly this.

A hall effect switch may be rated for 30 billion actuations, but it'll start feeling really awful to type on as the stem wears. This, combined with user damage will render the keyboard inoperable long before switch failure.

When I buy cherry keyboards it's not for their impressive actuation lifetime figure, it's for their ease-of-repair and availability of replacement parts and spares. I don't see kailh switches and stabilizers on sale at mouser.
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