Lube/grease type question

[filphil]

I have paintball lubricants lying around the house since I do play almost every other weekend.  Most are concoctions of dow/molykote 33 or 55 and used to lube o-rings in a paintball gun.  Would these be safe to use on the plastic that makes up most keyboards?

[tp4tissue]

I have paintball lubricants lying around the house since I do play almost every other weekend.  Most are concoctions of dow/molykote 33 or 55 and used to lube o-rings in a paintball gun.  Would these be safe to use on the plastic that makes up most keyboards?

just put som on the bottom of the space bar and find out.

[filphil]

I could but how long does it usually take to see some type of malformation?

[limmy]

It depends on the plastics.

Upon searching, I found that Molykote 55 is not compatible with ABS and silicone rubber both of which are widely used material for membrane keyboards.
(source: http://www.firstpowergroupllc.com/DCC_Product_Sheets/Molykote_55.pdf see compatibility section) The documents says that it may work fine for an application, but a user have to "test" compatibility beforehand.

Cherry switches do not use ABS plastics nor rubber, so I guess it would be safe to use them, but I personally don't recommend using grease form lubricants on Cherries because it tend to change the feel and make sliders sluggish.

I found no information on the plastic compositions of the Cherry stabilizers, I will check that with an acetone swipe and come back to you.

[Surly73]

I've seen lots of lubricant discussions here, especially since the rise in popularity of the Cherry-stabilized Leopold line.  Something which must be discussed is the QUANTITY of lubricant.  Every time a key is sticky everyone wants to throw more lube on it.  I was working on a Leo with sticky keys and I firmly believe it was overlubricated.  I washed the lubricant out of all of the stabilizers using an industrial electronics zero residue cleaner/degreaser spray, applied a light puff of some generic PTFE "dry" spray lube and it is working splendidly - almost the same feel as my Costar-stabilized Filco.

Remember that greases add "stick-tion" - they add a goopiness to the equation and the weak switch springs must overcome this.  The lighter the switch, the greater the danger.  Both greases and liquids attract dust.  Depending on the chemistry and properties involved this can get pretty serious where it cakes up and hardens.

IMO - make sure you have good plastic/rubber compatibility, apply lightly (if at all), and stick to something liquid or "dry".  My Amiga 2000 keyboard from 1987 has PCB-mounted blacks with Cherry stabilizers.  It saw many, many miles of heavy use back in the day and never had a stitch of lube.  To this day it has not a squeak or sticky stabilizer.  What's with the obsession with adding lubricant these days?

In my opinion - unless it's squeaking leave it lubricant-free.  [ I am assuming this is a Cherry MX discussion.  The situation may differ for high-mileage Realforce switches with plastic sliders that need lubrication due to wear ]