Linear orange Alps SKCM

[Blaise170]

Hi guys, I just recently bought an Apple M0116 with what appears to be Orange SKCM. The switches feel entirely linear and I do not feel a bump at all. Did the orange also come in a linear variety? The DT wiki states that Orange (and Salmon) switches were tactile.

[nubbinator]

They could have removed the tactile leaf.  That would do it.

[Blaise170]

Hm I suppose so, but the seller doesn't seem like the person to care too much about mechs, as the thing is dirty and nasty. I'll take a closer look when I get back.

[nubbinator]

Could have been a previous owner.

[CommonCurt]

I thought the same thing about the first M0116 I bought.

Way less tactile then I was expecting.  Like MX-Brown tactile.
Openened one of the switches up, and the leafs were there. 

The second one I bought felt better. I wondered if it was because the first one was in worst shape, and the switches were just way more broken in.

[chyros]

Should be easy to determine. If the switches have LED cutouts in them, they're almost certainly designed to be linear. If not, probably not (all linear Alps have LED cutouts).

Open one up and see if there's a tactile leaf in there. If there isn't, someone probably just took them out.

[jacobolus]

I’m guessing someone stored this keyboard with the keys all pressed down (e.g. under a pile of heavy stuff) for a few decades.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Yeah, I have one of those, and I put in click leaves from white alps in order to create basically blue alps. But there is alot of inconsistency in keyfeel. Condition is not good. When I then used my completed Matias AT101, the difference was night and day. Nice old Alps may be nicer, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort over just buying Matias switches. They are at least a known quality. Although I suppose it depends on how many you're willing to buy and use parts of (like the caps elsewhere) and then more to try to find nice ones.

What I did may have even been better with something in that shape, because it would have been consistently squished.

[Blaise170]

No, I'm just dumb. I tested the board out with Aqua and all of them were working except Num 0 so I decided to replace it with a Matias switch I had spare. After removing the keycaps (no soldering), I can't get any of the keys except Ctrl, Alt, Caps, Cmd to work. To get to the point, I can tell without the keycaps that they are tactile but the actuation is so far up that you can barely tell with keycaps on.

P.S. Anyone know why all of my keys suddenly stopped working?

[jacobolus]

When orange Alps switches are new, they are more tactile than MX clear, or a bit less tactile but roughly comparable to Matias quiet switches. If they don’t feel tactile, that means the leaves have been bent out of shape, usually caused by long-term storage with the keys pressed all the way down.

A lot of dirt/grit in the switches can also greatly reduce the snappy feeling.

[False_Dmitry_II]

Both of which can stop actuation from happening the way it is supposed to.