I was quite disappointed with what appears to be the valentine's day gift I gave myself today (because UPS decided to ship it early for me)
Here's my situation. I used a Unicomp $80 model for about a year before I spilled a cup of water on it and it no longer functioned correctly from that point on. I was in a dorm and I was unable to take the thing apart. As many of you may know it has these ridiculously sunk-in hex bolts that hold it together. It ended up going into the trash when I had to move out. :sad: I am starting to regret that more and more each day, because when that thing did work, the action and the click was heavenly (compared to this Cherry Brown board).
I had read something from somewhere (certainly not from a source as knowledgeable as this site, of course) that led me to believe that I had likely shorted something out by spilling water on it. Now if it was soda or beer, maybe there'd be no saving it, but I am now of the opinion that if I could disassemble it, or if I even thought to put it in an oven for a few hours, I could have saved it. How high could the sensing voltages be anyway?
So I had been without a proper keyboard for almost a year now.
Now, about the Das and the brown switches. First, the brown switches are not tactile at all. There is absolutely no way i can feel the moment when the key is activated, which is when the resistance drops slightly. I definitely should have paid more attention to the activation force diagrams because it is clear that buckling springs is very different from Cherry brown. On buckling spring, the drop is precipitous at the moment of activation. On the brown, it's barely perceivable, and it honestly feels like it makes it more mushy. Looking at the Model M force diagram I see that the key force goes up to almost 70g (whose idea was it to measure this force using mass units? tsk tsk). That's definitely Cherry black territory!
Also, in addition to this, the "scratchiness" that many others have commented on is driving me nuts. None of the keys travel vertically in their paths *smoothly*, they all feel like they are gliding along a plastic channel, plastic of a very rough texture. It just feels cheap. I'm also starting to get some squeaks coming out of a few keys. My Unicomp's action was smooth.
So I guess what I want to know is, am I likely to see any improvement by trying to lubricate these cherry switches? They function by sliding a plastic thing against a spring loaded metal piece, so it seems to me that lubricating it and the spring might allow me to get some smoother action out of them. Maybe they would become smoother after me typing on it for a week or so. But I am pretty sure it will never come close to that of a buckling spring switch. I guess I've been spoiled. Spoiled by the crisp release at the instant of activation. And that smooth action.
It's just that I feel robbed! I'm going to return this board and use that money to buy one and a half Unicomps. I started out this post hoping that somebody could say something that could change my mind but I'm not so sure anymore. If I kept this keyboard, I would just go and buy another Unicomp the first chance I get.
What about all of you here who own both Cherry brown keyboards and buckling spring keyboards? Is there anyone else who agrees with me about the scratchiness?
