How to make smooth super-soft-tactile Alps from tactile M...

[DiodeHead]

:O i think they are spying on 7bit, nice to know, i would love to see them on black too, i don´t like the clear case much, but that´s me just being picky.

[andrewjoy]

By the way, Matias themselves are planning to sell linear switches with no tactile leaf and a slightly different spring.

that would be amazing, i may buy a set for my northgate

[7bit]

You can have it now! No waiting time, just order, pay and wait for the mailman!

Just send this to CherryMX to get 100 of these new switches:
ALPSML 100
your e-mail address
ADDRESS
your shipping address

[Daniel Beardsmore]

For real, or is muggins there going to sit pulling out click leaves? :P

[7bit]

This is for real, but I will apply a bash script to remove the leaf-springs.

[caseyallenshobe]

Aren't those dampers meant to soften the bottoming out and topping out sounds? (And are therefore awesome?)

I got a keyboard with MX greens and red O-ring dampeners...0.2mm travel reduction which silences bottoming out noise. The keyboard however feels much nicer with them removed, though it's louder.

[Muirium]

Alps switches have internal dampers (when installed) which are very different to shoving great big O-rings on top.



The lack of space inside for internal dampers (on both bottoming out and topping out) is one of my main complaints about MX switches. Alps aren't as good in several ways — MX has superior electrical contacts, better stability when hit off-axis, a better cap mount, and a much easier lineup to understand! — but those double dampers they have are sweet. Even super expensive Topre Type-S only damps in one direction, only Alps does both.

[andrewjoy]

i hate o rings on cherry mx, make them feel like rubber domes :/

[Muirium]

Well, o-rings made of particularly gooey snot might just about do it.

[andrewjoy]

they helped a bit to smooth out the spacebar on my compaq with mx brown but other than that i dont know why anyone would bother, if you need quiet keys get mx red and learn not to bottom out

[jacobolus]

Alps aren't as good in several ways — MX has superior electrical contacts, better stability when hit off-axis, a better cap mount, and a much easier lineup to understand!

Why do you think the MX keycap mount is better? I think it’s awful: much more difficult to make one-off keycaps or tooling for injection molding, compared to almost any other keycap mount. The only real thing to recommend it is that it’s ubiquitous.

The MX slider isn’t a particularly good shape for reducing friction or guiding off-axis keypresses either. Many other slider designs are much better than MX (though I agree, the Alps slider design is also non-ideal). As a result, MX linear switches are mediocre compared to most other linear switches, such as Honeywell hall effect switches, RAFI switches, old linear SMK and Futaba switches, tee-mount Alps, linear Hi-Tek “space invaders”, or what HaaTa calls the “super Alps” switch.. or probably also older Cherry switches from the 70s, though I haven’t tried many of those. (Recent linear MX switches are also very scratchy, so they need to be painstakingly lubricated one by one, and the default springs are either too heavy or too light.)

The worst thing about MX though is the awful way that tactile/click response is implemented. It’s worse than pretty much every other tactile or click switch ever made.

As for understanding the lineup: if you start getting into obscure old types of MX switches, it’s just as confusing as obscure old types of Alps switches. http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_MX#T ... n_variants Especially with various clones and other compatible switches: http://deskthority.net/wiki/Cherry_MX_mount_recognition

[Muirium]

Ubiquity is a pretty big deal! So many of the best caps out there, and truly all the good new ones, are MX. That alone is enough to win.

But even in the abstract I prefer the MX mount. I've pulled Alps and Acers, and I plain don't like how tight the little buggers are. The smaller mount on Alps caps is simultaneously too small and real tight. Yet the switches themselves are pretty damn big, and I've had a few crack on top where no MX has done for me. The Alps mount seems to be a bit bad at everything.

Then I got hold of an NMB. Ah, so those are worse still! Even armed with a good wire puller, and a whole 100 keys to practice, I never did master the art of keeping the effing switches together while the caps came off. Springs flew! I like the feel of my clicky NMB keyboard better than clicky MX, just as I like me some Montereys and damped Alps, but NMB's low profile switch design opens comically easily while taking off caps. It's maddening! I tried every permutation of wiggle and I was beat. About a quarter of them flew open, try as I may.

I don't like IBM's beamspring (/Selectric?) mount over MX, either. Beamspring caps are superb, every bit the father of SA profile MX caps, but they're surprisingly good at bending the metal stems they attach to. So much so that every first time beamspring cap puller must always be warned: wiggle front to back, not side to side! Come on. I also don't like the need to push them down through a tactile event when they snap in place. Given that these switches are damn near irreplaceable.

IBM's other caps aren't up to much. As much as I love the feel of a Model F, the caps are thin and lack the sheer bulk and presence of doubleshots or thick PBTs. They are a smart enough mount, though, for swapping around and modding layouts outright. But I prefer the way NMBs feel, when it comes to the hollow caps game.

One mount I like as much as MX is Honeywell's. No surprise, it's a chunkier cruciform! They slot in and out very nicely, without sweat or surprise. Good and firm, but supple once you hook them with your wire keypuller. Their only problem is they're so big they wouldn't work on anything smaller than tall sphericals. Honeywell's mount is a relic from a bygone age. A nice one, mind.

Actually, Topre's mount is fine as well. They fit firmly, and pull well enough. Just a pity everything's so expensive!

I'm with you on the poor qualities of MX switches themselves. I don't favour them for typing. The linears are the best, but so scratchy nowadays. Why on earth aren't they all as smooth as Nixdorfs? Yet the things Cherry got right with them — modularity, a solid cap mount, and excellent stability over their lifetime — do add up to something valuable. Once Topre masters MX compatibility all the way, I'll be a happy typist!