Author Topic: Worth replacing Cherry switches due to Chatter (Kinesis Numpad)  (Read 1522 times)

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Offline glitchathon

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Worth replacing Cherry switches due to Chatter (Kinesis Numpad)
« on: Fri, 30 December 2016, 17:12:09 »
I have an old Kinesis Numpad, which is discontinued now. It uses Cherry Brown switches and after about 8 years, many of the keys have chatter, where they register double-presses. I was able to open it up easily and considering switching out all the switches. However, I also have 2 Kinesis Advantage's with Cherry Brown switches with no chatter after 8 years of use, so I was wondering if maybe the keyboard controller in my numpad is bad? In your opinion, is it worth switching out the switches or should I just forget about it? It is hard to imagine my Advantage's, with so many keys, has no problem, but my numpad (with the same switches and also from Kinesis) has at least 5-6 bad switches. Any advice is appreciated!

Offline Tactile

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  • Location: Portland, OR
Re: Worth replacing Cherry switches due to Chatter (Kinesis Numpad)
« Reply #1 on: Fri, 30 December 2016, 17:25:57 »
I think the Switch Hitter program from Elite Keyboards will measure switch chatter duration. Cherry specs a maximum contact bounce time of 5ms for the MX switches. If the chatter time is greater than that it might be a problem with the controller. I once had a wonky programmable controller which had the symptom of key chatter. I had to increase the debounce time to greater than 35ms to eliminate the "key chatter". Obviously the switch contacts were not bouncing for that long and there was something else going on in the controller, the symptom of which looked like contact bounce or key chatter.

Anyway, if you're not familiar with the program, here it is...

https://elitekeyboards.com/switchhitter.php
« Last Edit: Fri, 30 December 2016, 21:01:52 by Tactile »
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Offline glitchathon

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Re: Worth replacing Cherry switches due to Chatter (Kinesis Numpad)
« Reply #2 on: Sat, 31 December 2016, 16:22:26 »
Thanks Tactile,
I will need to try the software but will need to wait until I go to work next week and have access to a Windows machine. At this point I am leaning away from fixing this numpad. Might also be worth asking Kinesis support too.

Offline Findecanor

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Re: Worth replacing Cherry switches due to Chatter (Kinesis Numpad)
« Reply #3 on: Sat, 31 December 2016, 19:17:46 »
Once on one of my keyboards, one switch started chattering. I opened it up and redid the soldering which fixed the problem.
That does not necessarily be the same cause as for you, but you could maybe check it out. Could also be a bad solder joint on the controller.
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