Topre switch / Cherry MX compatible

[Muirium]

An HHKB "repair kit" of caps, space bar, and mount adapters! What's the look people really want, I wonder. The HHKB's stock caps are fine dyesub PBT cylindricals, so I'm thinking spherical doubleshots of course!

[vinzbe]

The purple is indeed like Carter mentioned on GeekHack not because of the Topre Silent Switches but our exclusive switch color to differentiate our switch from the rest of the Topre switches..

Small update, how about this font style:

Not bad!
IMO it would be a bit nicer to :
- center vertically the non alpha-numeric keys.
- print the multimedia labels on the vertical part of the caps.

What? who said Filco?

[avtar]

if we can pull together an order large enough I bet SP would make it.

Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes

An HHKB "repair kit" of caps, space bar, and mount adapters!

ABS 6u space bar and PBT spare caps? Don't forget about Realforce users :/

[CommonCurt]

With Cooler Master permission and in exclusive for DT here it is for your eyes only... the NovaTouch PCB indeed made by Topre



OF COURSE this is just a pre-release version!

Very nice Matt.

[cookie]

The hard part is the space bar. HHKB is 6.0 unit. I think only ABS DSA can do that size right now.

God dammit, you are right, I forgott about this

[Muirium]

So did I!

http://deskthority.net/post148282.html#p148282

[Azteca]

Just bought Realforce 87U “Silenced” to try Topres, replacing wasd keys discovered the stems are PURPLE. Then reviewed other images posted in this forum showing Realforce keyboards with purple stems.

So I don’t understand why Coolermaster claim that they are the ones that choose purple and claim that they have the exclusive use of purple stems:
“The purple stem is related to CM (Our now exclusive switch color)"
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=503 ... msg1247508

The purple is indeed like Carter mentioned on GeekHack not because of the Topre Silent Switches but our exclusive switch color to differentiate our switch from the rest of the Topre switches

"our exclusive switch color to differentiate our switch from the rest of the Topre switches" ??

I understand that marketing guys believe their companies are the best and unique, but claiming purple as an exclusive of Coolermaster is NOT Cool, misleading sounds better, considering that a lot of Realforce stems are purple. I don’t believe CM fashioned purple, they just selected an option provided by Realforce.

By the same token, as the claim that they have the exclusive use of purple sounds fishy, I now do not believe they have the exclusive for Topre with MX compatible switches. I would believe that if they paid for the tooling to manufacture Topre/MX stems, they can request Topre to only use this tooling to manufacture these stems for them, but I don’t see anything that can stop another corporation from doing their own tooling. Or better yet, doing our own stems:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=54942.0

[matt3o]

As far as I know standard, NOT silenced sliders in purple color (moreover with MX compatibility) are a CM exclusivity. (note that silenced and standard sliders are different in shape).

now I may agree that people might think they are silenced because of the color, and in it that way they might be misleading, but the problems of the novatouch are others (like we all posted here), not really the color of the sliders

[Muirium]

Purple is the fancier colour. CM want. Topre shrugs and says yes. Everybody gets confused.

[cookie]

Razer Green and Orange cherry clones, purple CM not silenced MX compatible topre sliders.... what comes next?

[Muirium]

<Fingers crossed for buckling spring revival.>

[cookie]

A buckling spring renaissance with products from logitech, I'd lol a lot!

[matt3o]

I want fairies in my switches who can change activation point and key weight based on the mood of day. If they could also shout "click" with various tones and intensities, that would be great.

[Muirium]

I seriously want controls for adjusting activation point and resistance, live! With stored, switch-specific, presets.

[cookie]

A capacitive switch without spring and dome but with electronic magnet could do the job!

[Muirium]

I have indeed thought about that. A solenoid and a cap sensor, each switch individually controlled, programmable to whatever force curve you like. I since heard that I'm not the first to think it: there are patent applications going back decades. But if someone does pull it off someday, it'll be beyond awesome.

Put an MX mount on the top, of course!

[tmacg55]

I stopped waiting for this novatouch and bought an mx brown board.. just wanted something mechanical, I'm not picky and found it silly to buy an expensive board like this for gaming needs.. Been using membrane keys all my life.

[cookie]

@Mu I can only imagine the smoothness of such a switch! There is a patent on such a switchtype? Never heard of that before.

[Muirium]

I think the patents (several of them, dating back to the 60s or something if I remember right) are about ways to build certain kinds of electromechanical force feedback switches; rather than the concept itself. Back when patents were sane!?

I wouldn't be put off by them. They're just proof that I wasn't the first to invent the concept last year!

[cookie]

If I just had the time, the CAD skills, a 3D printer and another 1000 excuses, I'd do it myself

[avtar]

matt3o, does Cooler Master's NDA allow you to describe what the weighting feels like compared to RF 45g, HHKB, or FC660C?

[Muirium]

<Calling Matt's lawyer…>

I think they said it's uniform 45g. But Matteo has that force gauge he built, doesn't he?


http://deskthority.net/post146859.html#p146859

[matt3o]

matt3o, does Cooler Master's NDA allow you to describe what the weighting feels like compared to RF 45g, HHKB, or FC660C?

I'll tell you as soon as I get a prototype closer to the final product.

@muir: that was v0.1... many iterations passed

[cookie]

It it were a all 30g dome, man I'd buy one to salvage parts hahaha

[Muirium]

You like 30g Topre over 45? First time I've heard someone want it lighter. Usually people pine for a 55g HHKB.

I've turned a bit to lighter switches lately. Reds led me astray. Maybe I'd think higher of them now.

[cookie]

Well I actually didn't like it on the variable keyboard from the Topre europe tour. But I think that was related to the variable weights.

I love light switsches and the 45 are verry nice. 55 would also be okay but if the board had 30g domes I'd give it a try to put the domes in my HHKB

[Broadmonkey]

I just saw this pic of the spacebar stabilizers in this thread over at kbdmania:

Novatouch spacebar stab.JPG (58.25 KiB) Viewed 5893 times

[matt3o]

from this pictures you can also see something important about the sliders... let's see if someone finds it

[avtar]

from this pictures you can also see something important about the sliders... let's see if someone finds it

They're purple! What did I win?

I don't know if it's the angle at which the picture was taken or the shadows but they seem shorter than the sliders on the Realforce that I'm using.

[matt3o]

from this pictures you can also see something important about the sliders... let's see if someone finds it

I don't know if it's the angle at which the picture was taken or the shadows but they seem shorter than the sliders on the Realforce that I'm using.

exactly!