Could use some MX advice.

[bloodygood]

This is my first post but I have been a long time lurker reading up to help form a basis for my decisions.
At the moment I am trying to find a way to get a few switches for testing purposes to find out what I like the most. I was considering going for Red, Blue, Black, Brown, Clear and getting an extra brown and clear to swap stems to test Ergo Clear and Brown stem Clear spring. The main problem there is finding somewhere that would either send all switches, and either making a mock-up to test them on, or finding a pcb mount numpad for low cost.
I am not asking for advice on how each switch feels of course, the main point was to be able to test them myself but I am just not sure where to get started towards that goal. As far as I can tell, this is a pretty common problem since all models are not available in stores to go test for ourselves. Other then maybe MX Blue or MX Black keyboards at Frys.

I have recently found a G80-3234 (clear MX switches, from what I have seen) ANSI layout (looks identical to IBM Model M) for about $50.
Also a G80-8937 (appears to also have clear MX switches) ISO layout+extra keys+card swiper+touchpad for about $26.
I am more than happy to post the links in "Great Finds", if anyone is interested. They are from TaoBao so it would probably be best to gather a large order as opposed to many individual orders due to import costs.

I currently own a Dell AT101W and an IBM Model M. My goal is to have a tenkeyless MX board for everyday use.

[daerid]

Can't say I can help you with your switch try board, but I've had good luck with just purchasing a board, and if I don't like the feel, I will resell it here in the Classifieds forum. Since mechanical boards retain a high resale value, you shouldn't lose more than a few bucks per board until you find the one you want.

Hell, I even made $40 or so on my Linear R 104 since it was a Limited Edition

[BiNiaRiS]

$50 for a clear G80-3000 is cheap

Sent from my EVO

[Clickey]

Speaking Chinese/Japanese/Korean gives you such a huge advantage in the keyboard world, you have access to things us ig'nant folk can only dream of. If you can sort out a group buy, there would probably be a lot of people interested.

[bloodygood]

Definitely sounds like the best idea is going forward with a straight purchase, then that is definitely what I will do. I am going to talk to my friend who lives in the east, he can definitely help talk with sellers and sort out a group buy on the Chinese side of the deal.
It really would be convenient if there was someone selling basically large quantities of pretty much every switch in the US though. Out of curiosity does anyone actually know the model number of the Black and Clear switches? From squarebox's post it seems these are known model numbers for red, brown, and blue  MX1A-L1DW  MX1A-E1JW  MX1A-G1JW I know I have tried to find at least a list of the available combinations but the best I found only listed a few model numbers, without any sort of hint as to what they are besides letters. Unless the bruteforce method is required and just try every combination in searches.

[Clickey]

What do you mean model number? If you are talking about which switch is in a cherry keyboard there is a section in the "Dating Cherry keyboards" wiki that explains what the model identification means and how to tell which switch is on a board using it. BUT cherrys like to switch it up and dnt really follow any rules.

You can get clears and browns from Rawko on ebay. Reds you will probably need to buy a new Chinese Filco clone to get, since very few cherry keyboards have them. Blues there are many sources, but hard to find a used one for cheap if that is what you are going for.

[N8N]

there's some info here:

http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Cherry+switches+and+boards

doesn't list all possible part numbers, but it does list the ones that you can buy in the US.

Datasheet here:

http://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data%20Sheets/Cherry%20PDFs/MX%20Series.pdf

[bloodygood]

there's some info here:

*snip* URL

(couldn't post URL so I snipped it there, even in a quote haha but that is okay, you know what you wrote.)
Ah thank you, that is what I was referring to. the list of "MX1A-(first letter or number) since that basically says which colour the switch is. Before I always had trouble trying to figure out from wholesale sites which was which. Now that will be much easier, and should help with my friend and I looking into possibly also opening up a group order of just switches too. I will try to find a listing of all possibilities if I can manage to put that together.