I have the Chiffons in FR4 currently and they feel good.
I was more just commenting that like you, I think in a poly-carb plate they might be a little redundant. I was thinking about try the same, but just haven’t done it yet.
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I think the pendulum swung too far into this direction since the other tactile offerings were so limited and same-y. You had Browns and Clears. Ergo Clears if you wanted to mod yourself, but I remember being interested in Clears in 2015 & 2016 and not being able to find them. In a board or by themselves (at that time I really wasn’t soldering either). That is why I picked up Topre, it was the only mid-tactile offered. It was only until Zeal V1s and them being featured in the Tada68 that it seemed easier to get anything other than Browns.
After being in the hobby for a while, it is easy to see that pendulum swings a lot between extremes. Now we are getting back to light tactile, the nice thing is that other tactile switches on the spectrum are still readily available and easy to get.
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In terms of full travel linears, I tried some Akko Jelly switches today briefly in a tester at a meetup. They seemed quite decent, especially for the price, as reputed.
Was also good to try (many) well tuned MX Blacks. I see why people like them.
Invokeys Black Sesame also felt good. Though they are not full travel, they didn’t feel abrupt to me. I’m not sure why, but it was hard to get a great sense in that setting.
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MX Blacks are amazing. Did you try any well-tuned MX Browns as well?
I did! They still were not my favorite, but they were vastly better than I’ve experienced.
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I recommend Kailh Pro Plum stems in POM housing. No noticeable loss in key travel if you use NK Cream housing. I use FLCMMK Ice Mint bottom housing with NK Cream top housing. Leaf on the Ice Mint is not ideal but combined effect is lower-pitch.
Light-tactile stem + POM housing is the thocky way to go for linear enthusiasts interested getting back a bit of tactile fun. I don’t know why but they sound lower than linear equivalents. And tactile bump is a detour that feels longer than straight path to bottom so perceived key travel loss is less significant.
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I absolutely love and recommend the Gateron Oil Kings. The sound is really pleasing to me on top of being a fan of the weight of it. @M_er_sun already mentioned it, but I also want
to say KTT Strawberries are nice. Also gonna throw in spring-swapped Cherry Blacks. If you think you like that Cherry sound profile I’d say try out some MX blacks, but if you don’t like the scratch feel, maybe look at broken-in blacks.
Also a fan of KS-3s but it looks like you’ve had experience with it already.
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Or even better, diamond polished MX Blacks. I’ve yet to fully try those, but the results are very promising.
Was part of the whole diamond polishing train, but honestly not worth putting in the work for me, mostly due to the cleaning portion. Although I might be willing to buy someone else’s polished blacks for a bit extra. I can see others putting in the work for polishing their blacks though.
Understandable. I put mine in an Ultrasonic cleaner and it does the job well, but applying, drying, QCing, and reassembling them, let alone lube, is quite an ordeal.
Speaking of standard-pole linears, I picked up some “light” 62g Tangies. They’re pretty good stock, but I think they could be improved.They’re supposedly to have light factory lube.
Any experience as to whether adding additional oil to the springs and/or filming these could improve the sound and feel without additional brush lubing? Thanks.
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I had one tangie from a sampler and I lubed and filmed it; it really does change up the sound signature a lot and cleans up some of the more “dirty” sounds. Make sure to not get a lot of lube on the bottom of the rails, or a lot of lube in general as it makes it quite thuddy and muted.
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Good to know! I tend toward preferring lighter lube even at risk of a little dirtier sound, so I think I’ll try just the springs and films first.
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You’re talking about Tangerines?
They are JWK switches similar to Alpacas. Different materials.
The Tangerines that came out around the same time as Alpacas greatly benefitted from being L + F.
The housings were a bit loose, compared to what they could be. Films tightened their sound profile, and made it sound less plasticy / high-pitched. Lubing also deepened their sound.
I don’t see any disadvantage to filming switches of that vintage, it should improve sound without changing the characteristics of the switch. If you like the switch-feel, be careful with lubing. It could change the feel of the switch. It’s more ‘interventionist’ than films on Tangerines, I think.
So you may wish to take a restrained approach towards lubing Tangerines, even though it improves sound [if applied within reason.]
EDIT: I agree, just film them and lube springs, at first.
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I agree, the springs need lube, and the housings need films. I would highly suggest while you’re at it to quickly brush lube (205g0 if possible) the top housings as this will mitigate the worst offending noise of these buggers, the high pitched upstroke clack. You should be good to go after that. Besides, you really have to be careful should you decided to brush lube the stems and lower housings on these as I’ve found them to feel more sluggish than buttery even with thin coats of thicker lube (maybe due to the housing material?).
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I had the same experience, and offer the same advice.
Tangerines lose their somewhat unique feel if you just drown them in lube. So films + springs, yes. But also, you can lube the areas of the top housing especially that don’t affect operation of the stem.
The idea is to preserve the operating characteristics of the factory lube and materials, but lube in some areas [for sound] that the factory didn’t.
A similar strategy was employed my on SP Star Meteor Orange light-tactiles. They operate fine, stock, but need films + lube in certain areas that the factory ignored.
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I lubed the springs in the alphas and numbers with GPL 106 and filmed them with Deskeys. I agree the filming cleans up the collisions, though the housings on mine had no wobble that I could find, and evens out any springs that had less coverage from the factory.
These were listed as Tangerines 2022. I don’t know if they tightened up the housings or if that is simply a production year designation.
The switches overall feel and sound similar but more a bit more consistent and focused. I quite like them.They do still have a little what I’ll call leaf rattle that I also find on Durock POMs and seems somewhat characteristic of JWK switches, but I don’t know that there’s anything to be done about that. (Had to order more films to do the rest.)
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