White Damped SKCM Alps switches

[2ter]

Hey,
I never edited the Wiki and don't want to add anything wrong, but i found that some suggestions might not be true regarding the Alps SKCM White Damped. I own a AEK II keyboard that was made in Ireland and has a 1989 copyright. the switches it uses are Alps SKCM White Damped but have slits and the tall switchplate. i do also own a later AEK II made in Ireland wich uses the more common White Damped switches without the slits. I made some pics with my phone:

[Daniel Beardsmore]

If white damped existed in both 1989 and the late 1990s, then its absence from the 1994 Alps catalogue is curious. That would not be the first potential anomaly with the catalogue.

It's hard to tell from your photos — are those sliders definitely pigmented white rather than colourless? You've omitted any photos showing that the sliders are damped, or what generation of tactile leaf was used.

Note that the wiki is increasingly out of date in terms of Alps data, but following the lack of interest in the switch database and general lack of wiki participation, I no longer have any desire to maintain that data on the wiki.

[2ter]

The sliders seem pigmented to me. They seem only marginally less pigmented than the slider from some complicated white Alps i put there for comparison. They also use the old style tactile leaf.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

As I understand it, most "[wiki]white[/wiki]" plastic parts in keyboards are not pigmented but rather the natural colourless state of the plastic. This is why Cherry MX Clear is called "clear", as Cherry MX White is pigmented white and is fully opaque. Unfortunately what arose is a situation where "white" means something different in relation to Cherry MX than it does to every other brand.

Then we have Sandy's white damped switches:

http://sandy55.fc2web.com/keyboard/appl ... m3501.html

The photos showing the switches in the keyboard clearly show white pigmented sliders that are a dazzling white. However, where he shows the slider extracted from the switch, it's back to plain unpigmented "clear" plastic instead of pigmented white.

I can't ask for clarification as Sandy's been gone for nearly two years — I last heard from him on the 15th of August 2015.

I had just one white damped switch, from the Mr Interface sample kit, and I dropped it at the bus stop and never saw it again.

I don't know that white damped and cream damped are even different switches. Someone found a datasheet for SKCMCQ, which is bamboo, suggesting that pine white (SKCMAQ) was followed by bamboo white (SKCMCQ). However since bamboo green was sold as SKCMAT, I can't determine what SKCMCQ represents. The lack of other SKCMC* types suggests that bamboo didn't get new model numbers, but rather new part numbers (often we don't get to see the full part numbers). In which case, it may be that white damped really is cream damped, with the same model number. We need more part number evidence to get to the bottom of this.

It's also possible that the damped type started as a 1st generation switch, and it became cream when blue switched to colourless, although that would be a strange and confusing thing to do (but it would make the clicky switch a bit cheaper through not needing as much pigment, I suppose). However, yours are transition period switches and there are lots of oddities in transition switches.

They're not white damped as we know them, though, but some early form of cream damped.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Alps cream damped is SKCMBB. Which returns to the question of how the final character is allocated. Does it always start at 'A' or can it start at something higher? Was there ever an SKCMBA, and is this it? It's always seemed like Alps pick something random. SKFR/SKFS for example: tactile starts at 'A' (SKFSAA) but linear seems to starts at 'C' (SKFRAC). Where's SKFRAA and SKFRAB?

[SeanTNT]

Alps cream damped is SKCMBB. Which returns to the question of how the final character is allocated. Does it always start at 'A' or can it start at something higher? Was there ever an SKCMBA, and is this it? It's always seemed like Alps pick something random. SKFR/SKFS for example: tactile starts at 'A' (SKFSAA) but linear seems to starts at 'C' (SKFRAC). Where's SKFRAA and SKFRAB?

That's deep bro