When Mr. Interface sent me these adapters, I was delighted. I popped on some caps and had some fun making new switch and cap combinations with a handful of them, until I tried to remove the adapters from the caps. They fit in and out of Alps switches just fine, but the MX side is very tight. You always wind up with the adapter clinging to your cap — the MX fit is at least 10x stronger than the Alps side — and they're quite tricky to get a grip on for the necessary wiggling to get them free.
I tried some filing to take the edge off. But I've had no luck. In fact, even with filed down adapters I managed to crack the mount column in an SA cap during one removal, and did the same with one of my stock NovaTouch caps even when putting one in! The 3D print material files away just fine but still the MX fit is way too tense. I'll get around to my theory about that in a bit.
But first, finally!, here's some pictures of them in action. DSA profile has short MX mounts, which really helps with these adapters. So I put PBT Granite DSA caps on my
Monterey K110 "MiniTouch" with sweet switch "Monterey" SMK switches. Excuse the Scottish winter's murky light…
- Granite MiniTouch Overview.JPG (388.71 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
Granite's Pro Mods came in useful here. But still the K110's oddball layout has a few things I can't match. The L shaped Tab, the plain weird Return, and then there's that pesky offset-stemmed right Shift! Grr. Only two keys have stabs, Return and the 5u space bar. I'm using them both with smaller caps for the time being. More harm in looks than feel.
I kept off a row of caps to show the adapters in action. They slot into the Alps mounts just perfectly. That gives you a solid platform for popping the tighter MX caps on top.
- Adapter Row.JPG (370.24 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
I like these minty ice cream colours! Note this is the narrow Monterey special function row. The adapters add enough extra height that full size MX caps work just great even up there, as they sit above the case plastic, and get full travel!
- Left Deep Shadow.JPG (397.06 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
These caps are a nice upgrade over my K110's stock ABS. No need to worry about them yellowing, either. I could see getting more use out of this keyboard with them. They feel great. No obvious wobble to worry about, no NovaTouch-style clattering, I'm impressed with them in action. It's great to have such cosy caps on sweet clicky Montereys!
- Right Side Edge.JPG (338.03 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
The height is, of course, increased with adapters. Mr. Interface kept this effect to the minimum by having no dead zone in the adapters, they go immediately from one mount shape to the next. But you still get some elevation simply because MX cap mounts don't fit inside Alps mount pegs. Unlike their native switches where caps pop inside the switch slider by some millimetres, here the two mounts stack on top instead.
- Adapter Closeup.JPG (414.39 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
This feels fine with DSA caps, but I wonder what SA would be like! I daren't try that quite yet, until we've found a way to make the adapters significantly easier to remove.
- Reverse.JPG (332 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
There's nothing quite like pale, pure Granite to show up a yellow case. My M110 is meant to be NIB, but it wouldn't surprise me to find it's yellowed over the years a bit, even in the dark. Its own ABS caps are way duller in shade than sparkly Granite.
- Oblique Nut.JPG (384.25 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
I'll post some more pictures when there's better light and I've completed the function row. Perhaps I'll try a spot of mix and match with the original caps so I don't get that fake spacebar look!
Now, about my theory. Here's a diagram to make it easier to describe:
- Adapter Closeup - Annotated.JPG (490.12 KiB) Viewed 15815 times
The easiest thing to attack with a file is the span, as I've marked on the diagram. I've been quite intense with that (in both X and Y directions) but even shaving off a whole load of it has zero effect on the mount's tightness. So next I tried filing down the thickness, as I've called it. This is much trickier to do. I'm not sure I've really been effective, but I gave it a few tries, and again zero result.
What I think is really going on is the curvature. When you put these adapters into caps, you can feel the 3D print material crumble a little when you push the cap into place. That's when things get real tight! I think the X shape isn't quite right angled enough at its inside corners (although the picture above makes this look way worse than it really is). I'm betting this is a limitation of 3D printing in general? I tried to carve the shoulder a bit deeper by hand, but it's very fiddly and again my attempts failed to alter the tightness.
But since I'm typing on these adapters right now, I did find a workaround! DSA caps are much better than the others I tried because they are short inside. They sit on about 50-66% of the adapter's MX stem. Less height, as I marked on the diagram, is better! The adapter is much easier to remove because there's simply less friction, and you even get better grip on it with your fingers when you pull.
My suggestion is to reduce the height of the MX side of the adapters. And to experiment with a few different, smaller, thickness dimensions too. I'd gladly help out testing even just a handful of those, to get the best match with my various caps. So far, these here are too tight in every MX cap I've put on them. Too much so for general use, though the concept definitely works and for the adventurous, the current model is useable with DSA and vintage Cherry sphericals.
