Alps Appreciation

[Morituri]

PCB is damaged so I'd avoid it.

You are correct. Good eye. I personally don't give a rip about the PCBs though; No control of layout, and wiring myself seems like it's more reliable than attempting to reuse an existing board anyway.

Tedious though.

[Blaise170]

Sometimes. It depends how much of the pad is left. In my experience you can continue using pads without jumping them when you still have about 60% left.

[guster11]

Just got finished with swapping my blues into the spare 2001 I had laying around. They so far are pretty great but its just gonna take a little time to get used to them after using cherrys for the past few months.

Mostly smooth swap, althought the pins that got bent down are the bain of my exsistence, they made desoldering way too hard. I do have one issue at the moment with the board that seems to occur, where when I press "f" either nothing happens or it prints 2 or 3 instead of one. I have one extra switch so I'll probably have to swap it into the current one's place as the switch seems to be the issue.

[Blaise170]

Bouncing is usually a bad switch in my experience. Sometimes caused by a bad solder joint.

[guster11]

Bouncing is usually a bad switch in my experience. Sometimes caused by a bad solder joint.

Yeah i figured that's also a possiblity, but I did a quick check of all the joints before I put it back together and it all seemed ok, but hey that would be better than having a dead blue alps switch.

[Khers]

I’m typing this on my newly assembled TMK Alps 64, this time using damped creams out of an AEK2 rather than the blue ones on my first one. The AEK2 was my first foray into the land of Alps and to be quite honest I was not impressed. I’ve since learned that this was due to two independent facts; firstly, my relative dislike for tactile Alps and secondly the fact that my specimen was rather beat up and sorry.

Yet, here I am, typing this on tactile Alps and I’m really rather enjoying myself. Initially I was planning to remove the tactile leafs from my creams while cleaning them and adding a dash of lube and use these linear damped Alps in my build. While I started doing just that, I found that removing the tactile leaf made them far lighter than I like my switches. Instead I went with just a plain reassembly of the switches after cleaning and lubing them, and to my great surprise (especially considering I was after a silent board and the switches turned out a lot noisier post lube job), I liked the result.



After the initial linearizing debacle, I saw that Sprit seems to be back from the dead with a promise of Alps springs in the fall. When seeing that, I thought that was the optimal solution. Sitting here typing on the final result, I’m not quite so certain anymore…

[y11971alex]

My Leading Edge DC-2014 has arrived. First impressions of the Blue Alps are: 1) smooth, 2) quiet click, 3) not very lively.

I don't know if I should attempt to write a review or not, but I'll try my hand at it when time permits.

[Chyros]

QUIET?! xDDD

[emdude]

Are the switches in good condition? I suppose they are if they're smooth.

Your second and third points are intriguing; relative to what? Capacitive buckling springs?

[y11971alex]

Are the switches in good condition? I suppose they are if they're smooth.

Your second and third points are intriguing; relative to what? Capacitive buckling springs?

Quiet compared to my Model F XT, which is what I had at hand to reference, since it's the original and the DC-2014 the clone. "Not very lively" is meant as a complement, though, perhaps badly worded; it's better described as "mellow".

[bubblebobbler]

is there a problem with lubing blue alps? I've heard their smoothness is possibly because of a dry lube or some such trickery, and I wouldn't want to ruin that for potential minor improvements, but if there isn't then I'll do it regardless of how I feel once I have stabilisers (my experience so far has been using 1.5u caps on all unstabilised keys, so it's hard to rate the experience so far

[Chyros]

is there a problem with lubing blue alps? I've heard their smoothness is possibly because of a dry lube or some such trickery, and I wouldn't want to ruin that for potential minor improvements, but if there isn't then I'll do it regardless of how I feel once I have stabilisers (my experience so far has been using 1.5u caps on all unstabilised keys, so it's hard to rate the experience so far

There has been no real success in trying to replace the factory lubricant Alps used. To my knowledge all attempts to find a lubricant that really "works" on Alps switches have failed, and some make them worse. I'd avoid it unless the switches were really bad and you had nothing to lose anyway.

[bubblebobbler]

is there a problem with lubing blue alps? I've heard their smoothness is possibly because of a dry lube or some such trickery, and I wouldn't want to ruin that for potential minor improvements, but if there isn't then I'll do it regardless of how I feel once I have stabilisers (my experience so far has been using 1.5u caps on all unstabilised keys, so it's hard to rate the experience so far

There has been no real success in trying to replace the factory lubricant Alps used. To my knowledge all attempts to find a lubricant that really "works" on Alps switches have failed, and some make them worse. I'd avoid it unless the switches were really bad and you had nothing to lose anyway.

thanks for the response

need to wait until I have stabilisers in - my typing technique is bad, so I can't even judge on a per-finger basis whether it's a nice experience so far


EDIT: if using swillkb for ISO alps, make sure to doublecheck the output - for some reason, their plate designs have the stems centered when alps iso enter isn't

[fohat]

To my knowledge all attempts to find a lubricant that really "works" on Alps switches have failed, and some make them worse.

While some folks seem to be zeroing in on dry Teflon lubricants, I will ask about your personal definitions of "works" and "worse" since you seem to like noise.

Frankly, even though I am using these big ole' clunky dinosaurs, in a perfect world I would love to find a switch that is distinctly tactile while being very light and nearly silent. I know, "Then why in the hell are you using a Model F?" - because feel and feedback trump everything else for me.

But my question to you is whether your complaint centers on the reduction of sound or weight, which I might consider to be positives rather than negatives.

[Chyros]

To my knowledge all attempts to find a lubricant that really "works" on Alps switches have failed, and some make them worse.

While some folks seem to be zeroing in on dry Teflon lubricants, I will ask about your personal definitions of "works" and "worse" since you seem to like noise.

Frankly, even though I am using these big ole' clunky dinosaurs, in a perfect world I would love to find a switch that is distinctly tactile while being very light and nearly silent. I know, "Then why in the hell are you using a Model F?" - because feel and feedback trump everything else for me.

But my question to you is whether your complaint centers on the reduction of sound or weight, which I might consider to be positives rather than negatives.

Oh no, I judge the effectiveness of a lubricant solely on the smoothness of the keyfeel. I don't think many people have had luck restoring Alps smoothness to proper levels using any lube, though.

[Khers]

FWIW, I lubed the creams in my board posted further up on the page with a dry Teflon lubricant and it did wonders for the key feel. They were originally not very nice, but after the lube job I find them about as smooth as my blue Alps in a direct comparison. After lubing them however, as noted in the post above, the switches have become noisier. When pressed and released slowly, they sound more or less like regular cream Alps, but when typing, thus releasing the keys faster, the tactile leaf emits an audible click on the upstroke. While the click isn't loud, the fact that the rest of the keyboard is silent makes it quite audible.

[emdude]

The click on the upstroke could also be due to improper reassembly of the switch.

[Khers]

I would then have had to improperly reassembled 70 switches in the same way which I find rather improbable, especially considering I've never had any issues beforehand. Sure, reassembling Alps switches is a fucking pain in the arse, but it's not qualified work.

[jbondeson]

I want to do a little more experimentation but I think the dampeners on the Matias QCs are a little more substantial than the older creams, but I haven't tried swapping them in yet.

I've noticed that the Matias QC innards that i have swapped into a cream hosing don't suffer from the same issues that I get with lubed stock creams.

[alh84001]

I reassembled some 100 SKCM white switches the other day, and I also lubed them with WD-40 branded PTFE lube, the spray one unfortunately. While some of the switches are completely silent on the upstroke, most of them have a very silent click (and I can't compare them to anything else so I don't know if this is normal or not), and some 5 switches have a very loud click. I will need to take a look at least at those 5 switches soon. I don't know how much is up to cleaning and how much up to lubing them, but switches now feel much, much better than when I got them, and feel better than SKCM black on my rather clean Dell AT101W. So, while they are not up to their best probably, they are still quite nice.

Also, a couple of switches on my SKCM orange boards had this click, and some of them I had to reassemble at least 10 times to get rid of that upstroke.

I don't have experience with cream switches, but it might be that they are far easier to reassemble and have a click than not have it?

[emdude]

Also, a couple of switches on my SKCM orange boards had this click, and some of them I had to reassemble at least 10 times to get rid of that upstroke.

I don't have experience with cream switches, but it might be that they are far easier to reassemble and have a click than not have it?

I ran into the same issue with my SKCM Orange switches. Not qualified work, no, but when it happens, this seems to occur even if the switch appears to have been reassembled correctly. It's quite odd and frustrating, and I wonder why this happens..

On another note, I will be experimenting with putting SKCM White damped sliders in SKCM Browns. E3E has said that the result feels very close to Topre so I am eager to try it myself.

[Khers]

I think I might just have come closer to the root of the issue. I took out a nice condition salmon Alps board and started replacing the switch parts one by one to see which one was causing the upstroke click. During reassembly of the switches I noted that the click noise most probably was emitted from the tactile leaf, as removing it also removed the click. As I'd done nothing to the tactile leafs, I was a little baffled by this initial finding. Pondering a bit, it was clear that either of the parts I'd lubed (the slider and the top housing) probably altered something inside the switch, yielding the click. So, I started with the procedure above; replacing the tactile leaf, the slider and the top housing on the creams with the same part from the salmons as well as all possible combinations of the three.

The conclusion of my little study is that the lubed top housing cause the click, as every combination where the top switch housing on the creams was replaced with one from the salmon batch were click-less.

In the past, I've noted that particularly dirty Alps switches sometimes have an audible click on the upstroke, and my guess is that I've created something analogous to dust in the switch by lubing the top housing with dry lube. I guess I shouldn't have lubed it at all, or used considerably less lube. I guess I'll have a fun job trying to remove the Teflon lube from the top housings some time in the future. I can't say I'm too thrilled about that though, so it'll probably take a while before I do. Besides, I mostly type on Topre anyway, so I'm used to a bit of a return stroke click .

Anyway, the lubed creams with non-cleaned, non-lubed top housings are nice and silent. Not as good a tactile switch as Topre, imo, but a lot better than most tactile switches I've used. All things considered, clicky (blue) Alps are still my fav Alps switches.

[scottc]

Really nice board, Khers! How do you like the plate?

[Khers]

Thanks! I like it a lot, the combination of a plastic case and plate makes this board a lot softer to type on than my other Alps 60%, which I appreciate. It was a bitch to get the switches lined up when soldering though, just like you warned me. I thought I was prepared for the worst, alas it was worse than I had anticipated. Two switches (K – sorry, J – and = ) are still a little out of alignment, but managed to pass my initial inspection on the night I built it, so will have to be corrected later on. In hindsight, I should've probably hot glued the switches to the plate before soldering .

[scottc]

I actually don't mind the nubs in the wrong places, they didn't bother me at all

Hot gluing might be a good idea. I used superglue for the stabs and they work really well. Hot glue on switches is just so permanent and I might want to switch swap etc. in the future... Anyway I've gotten my blue Alps mostly lined up right and I'm pretty happy with it too. The plastic plate is definitely a lot softer than stainless steel which is a relief at times!

[Khers]

I tried using the homing bumps on D and K but I was just typing gibberish all the time, so I had to switch them.

I found that while a bit of a bother when I thought I was done with the soldering, lining the switches up correctly wasn't really an issue. I'd say it was more problematic, at first, to see which ones were correct and which ones weren't.

Come to think of it, hot glue may be too permanent and too messy, but if I'd do it again I'd definitely be using some kind of weaker glue to keep the switches in position.

[alh84001]

The conclusion of my little study is that the lubed top housing cause the click, as every combination where the top switch housing on the creams was replaced with one from the salmon batch were click-less.

Very interesting. I lubed my switches with the spray-on PTFE lube, and I did it in a way that I sprayed a bit on the inside of the top housing where the slider sits, but obviously a bit of it spilt on the other parts of the housing as well. However, as I mentioned, at most four or five of those switches were clicky on the upstroke when reassembling them. So, maybe something's different there between white and cream switches.

And to add to that, none of those orange switches that became clicky have been lubed, at least not by me, and probably not that recently if they were lubed by someone else.

Edit:
Completely unrelated to above, but I just now noticed that there are actually two different omnikey 101 models. One with ANSI layout and the other with the more usual omnikey (focus?) layout. Their FCC IDs are different, but model badge on top says 101 for both of them. Are there any other differences?

[Khers]

I was carefully comparing the innards of my cream and salmon switches and I found them, slider apart, to be identical. I also tried the inverse of my test and I can make non-clicky salmons clicky by exchanging the top housing with one I have lubed.

I guess you did a better job, spray or no spray, of keeping the lube where it was supposed to go, alh. On the other hand, I had no idea this could be the effect, so I wasn't paying attention to it

[Stabilized]

I have what is perhaps a nooby question: I just bought my first Matias board and I would like to mod it as it's not really that nice stock. I have a temperamental Apple extended keyboard (first edition) that I plan to use the keycaps from, but I was thinking that because I enjoy the feel of orange alps more than these Matias maybe I could swap the switch innards too. So I was wondering: are the parts interchangeable between the two?

[scottc]

They're pin-compatible so you can desolder the Matias switches and replace them with the orange Alps, but the insides aren't compatible from what I understand. You'd have to do a full switch swap, not just replace the switch tops etc. like you can with plate-mount MX.