Cherry MX Spring Modifications

[rocketman9000]

I bought a Deck Hassium Pro, but I am thinking about modifying some of the switches. I do not have a soldering iron, or any soldering experience, so I would like to modify the switches by replacing the springs. The hassium pro came with cherry blue switches, but I am interesting in turning them into "ghetto greens" by replacing the springs. I already checked, and the Hassium Pro is PCB-mounted, so this should be possible. I just have a few questions.

-Can I buy the springs seperately from the switches? This would potentially be a huge savings.
-Can tactile (blue) switches be converted into linear (black) switches, just by swapping the springs and stems? I'm thinking about converting the WASD keys into Cherry Blacks. This leads me to my third and final question:
-Does having multiple switch types on a keyboard make for an awkward typing experience?

Thanks!

[epzy]

1. Yes, you can buy springs here in the classifieds possibly, or @ Originativeco.com (I wouldn't recommend buying from there, but it seems like the owner is back in business now).

2. If you swap out the blue stem for e.g. a black stem, it'll become linear.

3. Personal preference. I would never mix tactile and linear switches, though. I've seen mixes between brown/clear and blue/clear before and I'm sure there are a lot of other people with different switch combos out there.

[Defect]

-Can I buy the springs seperately from the switches? This would potentially be a huge savings.

Yes.  And black switches are most common among older boards, so it's easy to find donor boards.  I picked up two TG3 Data 911's for 50 total.  All the black stems/springs I'll ever need.

-Can tactile (blue) switches be converted into linear (black) switches, just by swapping the springs and stems? I'm thinking about converting the WASD keys into Cherry Blacks.

I wouldn't call it "converting."  That's like replacing the engine and chasis of a car and asking if it's converted.  But to answer your question, the housing unit of all MX switches are the same.  Well, there's PCB vs Plate mount switches, but all that is is two extra plastic legs that PCB mount switch housing has.  Tactility and weight are determined by stem and spring.

-Does having multiple switch types on a keyboard make for an awkward typing experience?

Yes.  I would limit your "Zombification" to different clusters.  I recently modded an MX Black Ducky 9008G2 to ghetto greens for a friend.  Ghetto greens on alphas, lubed ghost blacks on 6-key insert/home/pageup cluster, lubed blacks on arrows, mx white on escape, mx tactile grey on numlock, panda clears on num row, and ergo clears and other various switches in each F-cluster. 

It's his first mech board and I wanted to give him a taste of my hobby lol.

[Grendel]

I bought a Deck Hassium Pro, but I am thinking about modifying some of the switches. I do not have a soldering iron, or any soldering experience, so I would like to modify the switches by replacing the springs. The hassium pro came with cherry blue switches, but I am interesting in turning them into "ghetto greens" by replacing the springs. I already checked, and the Hassium Pro is PCB-mounted, so this should be possible.

The Hassium Pro has a plate, making opening the switches impossible w/o desoldering them. Unless you bought it used and the previous owner took the plate out... But even then, the LED's for the back lights are preventing you from opening the switches as well -- need to desolder those too to open the switches.

[xman]

I bought a Deck Hassium Pro, but I am thinking about modifying some of the switches. I do not have a soldering iron, or any soldering experience, so I would like to modify the switches by replacing the springs. The hassium pro came with cherry blue switches, but I am interesting in turning them into "ghetto greens" by replacing the springs. I already checked, and the Hassium Pro is PCB-mounted, so this should be possible.

The Hassium Pro has a plate, making opening the switches impossible w/o desoldering them. Unless you bought it used and the previous owner took the plate out...

Unless the plate has cut-outs like the Phantom plate,
which reportedly (I never tried it) allows opening of the switches.

Also if it is back-lit, that might or might not cause problems...
See my question about that, & check out the answer I received here:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=44940.msg1297142#msg1297142

I'm curious about the full NKRO (when turned on)...
If you ever test it with Aqua's key test, please report your results.

[Oobly]

I bought a Deck Hassium Pro, but I am thinking about modifying some of the switches. I do not have a soldering iron, or any soldering experience, so I would like to modify the switches by replacing the springs. The hassium pro came with cherry blue switches, but I am interesting in turning them into "ghetto greens" by replacing the springs. I already checked, and the Hassium Pro is PCB-mounted, so this should be possible.

The Hassium Pro has a plate, making opening the switches impossible w/o desoldering them. Unless you bought it used and the previous owner took the plate out... But even then, the LED's for the back lights are preventing you from opening the switches as well -- need to desolder those too to open the switches.

^^This. It's a plate mounted board with LED's (see here: http://www.hardcoreware.net/deck-hassium-deck-francium-review/2/), so you'd have to desolder all the LED's AND the switches to replace the springs. May as well just replace the entire switch then instead of changing stems and / or springs.

As for your questions:

Yes, but they may be hard to find. Originative seems out of stock of most of them at the moment.
Yes, but then you need to buy complete switches, since AFAIK nobody sells just stems.
Yes, especially with different switches just on WASD or similar area since it's used for typing and the different feeling can really mess up your rythm.