The native state of spare part beam spring modules

[Parak]

bs1

bs2

Got a few packaged exactly like this - rubber banded, individually in small plastic baggies, stapled closed. As per the person I got these from, these are NIB(ag), and how they were originally packaged as a replacement part.

[Chyros]

Oh wow, someone's finally tracked some of these down. I knew they existed, but I had never seen them before. Do you know how ample this stock is?

[Engicoder]

I am amazed that the rubber bands have survived all that time.

[JP!]

Nice find.

[Parak]

Oh wow, someone's finally tracked some of these down. I knew they existed, but I had never seen them before. Do you know how ample this stock is?

There were about a keyboard's worth, and I got them all to serve as potential replacements in a refurbishment project. Definitely wasn't cheap.

I am amazed that the rubber bands have survived all that time.

A lot of them didn't

[orihalcon]

I don’t think I’ve seen o rings that have gone bad on a beamspring actually. Even those from the infamous rust master I believe all still had good o rings. I believe I saw these listed on eBay a while ago as I am guessing that is where they came from. If you look closely at them, you will see that the stems don’t have the angle on them if they are that batch, so your key angles will be off if you mix them in with originals which are angled. Non angled ones were only for data station keyboards as far as I know. Definitely cool either way!

[Parak]

Graphs courtesy of HaaTa:

Generic beam spring from a used 5251:



The aforementioned NIB switches:

[seebart]

Hmm interesting, thanks for posting that.

[Parak]

I suspect that the reduced force is due to them being rubber banded for a few decades, and the considerable smoothness due to lack of environmental and human debris. However, the reduced travel is pretty weird and not quite explainable without comparing the two with calipers and such.

[scottc]

Where'd you get these? I could do with a handful.

[Chyros]

Wow. That NOS force curve is AMAZING. Look at how SMOOTH that thing is!

[Menuhin]

The graph looks like it's drawn or it's some kind of simulation without adding anything to the noise parameters.

The reduced travel could be due to the spring being compressed for years stays at a height shorter than those never been kept in a prolonged compressed state.

[codemonkeymike]

What a divine force curve.

[Parak]

Yeah, HaaTa mentioned being surprised at the measurements and repeated another set with the same results. Each graph is a set of 4 measurements as well, so you can see the consistency (or lack thereof, for some switches).

Travel shouldn't be affected by the compression - there's no more room or give at the top of the travel that might indicate a weak spring, say.

@scottc: This was an ebay grab, and the seller doesn't have anything else of importance from what I understood. My plan is to use them in a long overdue project, and I'll have to see if I have any left over after that for potential selling/etc.

[Chyros]

I'm actually quite happy I delayed my beamspring Teardown video now, this is definitely worth including. I mean Jesus Christ on a moped, this is by far the most beautiful force curve I've ever seen! A true testament to the switch' quality, I'd say.

[andrewjoy]

Map it against a modern MX brown before they re did the tooling and made them better again .

[Chyros]

Map it against a modern MX brown before they re did the tooling and made them better again .

Oh, the force curve of MX brown is pretty easy to find online:

[ohaimark]

rekt

[Dingster]

rip browns, disgusting shit colored plastic!

[DustGod]

rip