deskthority

Does anyone have [wiki]Cherry MX Pale Blue[/wiki] switches to verify? Interesting characteristics include the weight, contact prism shape, shell design, spring length and free turns, whether or not it clicks, and whether the click collar has discoloured ramps, something that seems to be common to a number of these less-common types.

I'm noticing that virtually no details exist on any of these types, and there are discrepancies in whether or not they click, and what the switch weight is. For example, the wiki gives [wiki]Cherry MX Dark Blue[/wiki] as clicky, while mine are non-click like Pale Blue.

The switches that alps.tw found in the [wiki]Copam K-457[/wiki] have the same discoloured slider ramps and reduced spring turns as Cherry MX Pale Blue, but the colour is clearly wrong, and it does seem to click (there's no way to get a clear idea without a human being translating alps.tw's write-up).

There's a photo here of blue, dark blue and "pale" blue, and you can see the reduced spring turns and the click collar discolouration:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dwiswitch000/24604694961

I have a whole boards worth of these I desoldered from a Chicony KB-5191 a while ago. The board itself was basically sitting in some old man's garage for over 20 years so the switches are really clean. From what I can tell, the pale blue slider looks the same as a normal MX blue slider. The housing is also identical to Wyse vintage blacks (small logo). The only difference I can see between the two is the spring. The spring on the pale blue has less turns and it's also a bit heavier. The switches also have quite an inconsistent soft click, nowhere near as clicky as MX blues but definitely still clicky.

I have some bondwell boards that may just be pale blues. Don't have a modern mx blue to compare to for color though. I've never seen an MX dark blue, but from your picture, they may be the same internally? I always just thought that these were vintage blues rather than an undocumented switch type.

That's the problem, nobody knows what these are. The descriptions of "vintage" MX "White" (Type A and Type B) don't seem to make sense, and "Pale" blue (it's not pale, it's a different hue) and "Dark" blue (navy blue in my case) seem to cross over and contradict the claims made, and the claims are largely unsubstantiated with either measurements or photos. There are even some suggestions from what I've seen that vintage white, modern white and pale and dark blue may be related, given that many of them don't seem to click strongly, and I keep seeing this yellow discolouration around the slider ramps, like something oily has soaked in.

Until we have a sufficiently large set of data for all these types we'll never be certain that we understand them.