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United StatesClacky with a side of crunch, ticking, and stem shrinkage? 2-min read
As a long pole lover and having missed the chance to get these during the Glacier 80 GB I was a a little sad. Seeing these pop up in Divinikey, I knew I had to cop instantly. Very smooth feeling switch in stock form. Not too far off of C3 Tangerine ~ Gateron CJ Tier smoothness. Sound signature is Loud and High Pitched. Not as high pitched as a Zaku though. The POM housing makes for a softer sounding bottom out and top out sound, and overall sound more consistent. On the other hand Zakus have a Nylon Bottom and a PC Top, which makes the bottom out sound more like a smack and the upstroke higher pitched. I've had some experience with UHMWPE blend stems with the P3 in the Prevail Epsilons and Durock POM Linears, the similar problems arise with the SOTCs LY stem. In roughly 1 out of 4 - 5 switches have some leaf tick, and almost 1 in 2 - 3 have negligible spring crunch from regular typing distance. The spring crunch is easily addressed by bag/tub lubing the springs; if there are particularly stubborn ones, you can further do a light donut dip. As for leaf tick, this is addressable to a certain degree. Lubing the back of the leaf and lubing over the factory lube on the stem very lightly can reduce the leaf tick on stubborn switches if not completely eliminate it on some not so stubborn ones. Last comment on this. It's my guess that UHMWPE blend stems shrink somewhat which result in less than ideal snugness of keycaps. That said, if you are particularly sensitive to ticking noises AND you've lubed the back side of the copper leaf AND added lube to your spring AND you still hear some sort of ticking. That comes from the stem tapping against the housing. This isn't all that common compared to the leaf tick and spring crunch. But after 110 Prevail Epsilons, 105 CreateKeebs SOTCs, and 108 Durock POM Linears all of which use the UHMWPE stems, I'd say I have somewhat of an adequate sample size of 300+ switches. I've found 7 that exhibit this sort of ticking. So roughly 1 in 46 switches in my experience. I don't know if this is a JWK QC issue, bad luck, or P3 and LY being a relatively new stem material vs POM and manufacturers are still trying to figure out the plastic shrinkages. Rating? 4.0/5.0 (whole batch stock) 4.3/5.0 (whole batch after lubing behind the leaf, add lube to springs ) 4.6/5.0 (cherry picked, non ticking switches after modding )
United States United StatesDivinikey is hands down my favorite mechanical keyboard online store
Amazing customer service, rad collection of inventory and crazy quick shipping time. It’s unreal. I wish y’all had more switches, not that you don’t have enough. Divinikey is the one 5/5 stars always from me.
Puerto RicoGreat switches, but the benefit from lubrication and film
Bought a total of 210 switches (two orders of three 35 switch packs) from ESC.Hit, not bought from Divinikey. These switches, as they come stock, are as smooth as stock Gateron China Joy switches (CJs), Oil Kings and properly lubricated Epsilon/Nebula. Some switches exhibit leaf ping/tick, as well as spring ping, so you need to take the time to go over the factory lubrication, apply some lubrication to the contact leaves and use GP105, or better yet, GP106 oil on the springs. If you can afford it, replace with your favorite SPRiT springs. Even though the housings are fairly tight, they do benefit from filming, make the sound a tad deeper; used 0.125 TX films. Stem wobble is pretty good, though filming does not improve this aspect of the switch. As others have stated, the so-called LY material used for the stems really don't grab hold of the keycaps, which makes mounting and removal a trivial task, but on some switches the tolerances are so loose that I've had keycaps bounce away from a switch after a quick press and release. Overall, these are my favorite linears thus far, and are mounted on a QK65 R1 and a KBDFans Odin V2. Though the new Owlabs Neon switches are also pretty nice. I did buy the Neons from Divinikey, and they are mounted on a KBD67 Lite, which is the board I use to test new switches.
United StatesSOTC good but the springs are terrible
So the switches are not but being JWK you will get inconsistencies in everything. Some switches have an unusual squicky sound and some have that distint JWK spring crunchy sound even tho they say they are lube. I honestly dont know where the lube is. Stem or bottom housing?