100%

That’s not a bad average, right?

I’ve mentioned mechanical keyboards and flight sims, and this is one of those posts and nothing deep or philosophicalistic (probably, even though sometimes I’m not really sure where I;’m going when I start these – *anyway*)

So far my mech switch percentage is 100%. As in, I haven’t bought a bunch of switches I haven’t been happy with. Now, some of that may be that I can type on anything. But a couple “switch tester” offerings I’ve tried have offered a variety of switches I wouldn’t be happy using for long … depending on what I wanted.

We’ll call the Cherry Reds the “first batch”. They were included by default, and they’re fine. I hadn’t even planned on replacing them; I just wanted to build a couple keyboards for my cockpit.

Second batch were Gateron Oil Kings. I liked what people were saying about them, was basically the criteria. I like them so much I may replace the default reds under my fingers right now. I used them in a Planck, with foam, and … man, that is fun to poke on.

Third were Everglide Aqua Kings. Now frankly these were chosen because they were the clearest package I could find and the next keyboard project is pretty obviously based on that. Anyway, turns out they’re really nice, too. I don’t think they’re quite as nice strictly for typing as the oil kings, but they’re also a clear jump ahead of the default reds.

And last, the holy panda Xs. Another one chosen pretty much based on what people were saying about it, and the desire for a more tactile feeling for some switches. There’s a very subtle heft right at the beginning of the stroke, and the rest of the travel is butter smooth. TBH I’d have preferred quite a bit more “chunk” in the tactile feedback, but that’s because of my specific use case for these. For typing, I bet they’d be fine – barely noticable as different from a linear switch.

I also have a number of some sort of cherry-style keyswitches with a black case and blue plunger. I’ve had them for a long time, used a few here and there, and they’ve got a snappy little click to them. I do not remember exactly what they came from, but I know I de-soldered and cannibalized them somewhere along the line.

None of the switch samplers gave me what I wanted though – not all that surprising I guess, but I am a little surprised that there’s not at least a few offerings of a good, smooth-but-solid tactile feedback. I suspect material durability may be a limiting factor. *NO ONE CARES* I hear you shouting, as if anyone is reading this.

Oh, you know what else? I thought I’d save a few bucks. I needed to make some cables. Crimp connectors. No worries. I’ve got crimps. I also have aviation snips, diagonal cutters, etcetera. So these crimp connectors cost less still on their carrier strips, and I figured a little tedium would be ok.

Friends, I tell you I will never again make this mistake. Sure, you can cut them apart no problem. You have to cut them apart *correctly*. That’s at least two cuts, per connector, all without undesired warping of said connector during said pruning process. ONCE this initial step has been taken, the cable you are making and all adjacent connectors must survive both crimping operations for every lead still in condition to slide and lock into the housing, ensuring proper installation and future operation.

Now on the one hand, I am only down a single housing and around 10 connectors (yeah it isn’t great), but on the other hand I don’t have a single cable made yet.

So anyway, I decided to order the bagged connectors even though they cost a tiny bit more and have now cost me the price of the original ones because I will probably never use them again because two days of frustrating tedious failure is enough.

You know things are getting serious when I warm up the soldering iron. Peace!