Also, I earlier said in the thread about Zealio V1 Redux that it’s kinda hard to justify the price of Zealios when Gateron’s own CAP Brown switches were costing .30 cents each.
But now I see that the value of Zealio V1R may be for the customizers. Because CAP Brown, like other CAP switches, uses a non-standard stem and spring design. So it’s harder to work with replacement springs, and probably has to be lubed differently.
Whereas Zealio V1, I think, is a more conventional design. So it should be easier to lube and film properly [although I have heard of difficulties with replacement springs].
CAP Brown can still offer tremendous value to people who don’t customize their switches, but it still has these irksome properties.
Speaking of cost, I wonder if the V1 and V2 version of CAP Brown have anything to do with it. Because there’s an out of date section on Elboard Keyboard Supply, for example, where it is selling CAP Brown for 30-35 cents each. And now there is a newer section where they are being sold for 48-50 cents each. The V2 are supposedly better-lubed and have less wobble. I’m not sure which versions I have.
Thanks. I also own a set of CAP Yellow switches, which have none of these problems whatsoever (apart from the oil leakage). I’m really satisfied with them. I was hoping the CAP Browns to be their tactile counterpart, but it turned out not to be the case.
My CAP Browns are apparently v2, at least this is what seller says. The only information I found about v1 vs v2 difference is this video, but looks like it’s not applicable to the CAP Browns. My Browns have features of v1 from this video on the top housing and of v2 on the bottom housing.
I think I bought mine around the summer, when some sellers were transitioning from V1 to V2. So it would be appropriate if mine too had features of both V1 and V2. I guess it mostly applies to the linears, as you say.
The luber I was talking to had noticed some leaf noise with the CAP Golden Browns at the time, which he said was worse than the Milky Browns. So I paid him to lube the leaf area of a bag of Golden Browns, which I have in an MK870 now.
From my limited experience with it so far, it seems as if the hand-lubed CAP Golden Browns have less of the “extra” noises than the stock Milky Browns. They are also a bit gentler b/c of the lubing.
Keep in mind that this is with only a minimum of 3204 near the leaf area. But, using Varmilo PBT keycaps, the MK870 with Golden Browns has a pretty clean and thocky sound. So CAP Browns don’t have to have sound issues, but it looks like user intervention is necessary to fix them.
I actually have an MK870 coming at the end of the month (first custom mech keyboard build, so I’m super excited!) and I’m hoping to buy a set of new light tactiles for it. Over the last couple of months, I’ve had the chance to try Gateron Browns and I really like them.
I stumbled upon this thread while looking to explore other light tactiles and would love some input/suggestions. Does anyone know the difference between CAP V2 Golden Browns vs. Phantom Browns? Additionally, from what I gathered, is the biggest difference between Cap V2 Golden Browns vs Cap V2 Milky Browns is that the Goldens have slightly deeper sound? I’d honestly love to buy all of these switches and compare them myself but my budget is limited. Cotton Candys look amazing too, but I’d prefer something cheaper.
I plan to use the switches stock initially. Maybe I’ll film/lube them further down the line.
I mean to test the MK870 side-by-side with the Rakk to see how the Golden Brown / Milky Brown sound in comparison.
I have read that Golden Brown indeed sounds deeper. But that’s within same generation (V1 or V2). My GB are V1, I think, and MB are V2. So I can’t compare directly.
Someone I know who had both thought that Milky Brown actually sounded ‘better,’ whatever that means. The V1 Golden Brown had some noticeable leaf noise. So now mine are lubed near the leaf-area, and might actually sound deeper than V2 Milky Brown. Haven’t compared using all variables the same (board, keycaps), unfortunately.
As far as suggestions for switches, Gateron CAP Brown are more tactile than Gateron Brown. The Gateron Brown tactile event is more of a ‘hump’ whereas CAP Brown have a coherent bump. The CAP Brown bump is larger than Gateron or MX Brown. It’s more of an Ergo Clear, and actually resembles 62-65 G Ergo Clears, if you have tried those.
If Cotton Candies are something that interested you, you could try Durock Light Tactile, although it uses a worse-sounding housing material IMHO. So you might want to instead look into Mallow switches if they arrive, since they are very affordable. Some people here have had good experiences with samples of the switch, which is said to be a nice light-tactile that sounds okay and will sound better with lube.
Something that’s in the tactility range of CAP Brown is Zealio V1 Redux. They are more expensive, and should be purchased at about .70 cents each when on sale. They will need to be lubed, possibly filmed, but doing so can give you better results than stock CAP Brown.
I enjoy the lightness of SP Star Meteor Orange, but they need all sorts of mods to improve their sound. You could look into Durock Medium Tactile, which can be made into a fairly light and good switch using the stock 63.5 G Durock springs, L+F. Durock’s lighter range of tactiles seems to pair better with polycarb plates, if you ask me.
I ultimately went with Gateron Milky Browns (non CAP) since they’re much more in my price range compared to the other alternatives at this point in time. I’ve also changed my mind and I’ll be looking to at least lube them. I saw a typing test and they sound amazing lubed in a KBD75 with an aluminum plate. I know I won’t have that exact build, but hopefully with some mods I can get close with my MK870. In the future I’ll definitely look to try other light tactiles you mentioned.
Side question, do you have any recommendations for some budget, decent value keycaps for the light tactiles? This is my first build and I want to get the most bang for my buck without breaking the bank. Thinking maybe around $50 at most?
Well, you’re not alone in going with the Milky Browns. As I said, someone who lubes a great deal was impressed by the Milky Browns. So I’m not sure of a compelling reason to get Golden Browns. If you handlube either, you’ll get the best results.
CAP Browns really are close to light 62-65 [14mm] Ergo Clears, so you might want to give those a try at some point. They are easy to lube once you know what you are doing, and take well to it. Hard getting MX Clears right now, and you’d want to go for pre-Hyperglide, though.
I have to say that CAP Golden Browns [and likely Milky Browns] can be made to sound very good in any decent modded board using decent keycaps.
With cheap keycaps, you want something that isn’t going to screw you over. There are some sub-50 keycap sets on AliExpress, clones of GMK for instance, but many of them have crooked spacebars and other problems.
So what can you buy that is reliable?
One recommendation is Artifact Bloom keycaps, which you can look up on this forum. Their “vintage” set, for instance, is $39 + shipping.
I have that set and some nice teal accents. The keycaps appear to be consistent and orderly. Spacebar is surprisingly-straight. Nothing really wrong with them. However, the tops scratch easily. Their downside is that the surface texture is very smooth, maybe like worn-in ABS [although I wouldn’t say that].
I found that those keycaps are best with clicky switches, but maybe too slippery for other types.
Then, you should look up AKKO. They have something called ASA profile, which is probably a giant OEM hi-profile [and a weird low-profile.] Keycaps typically range $50-60 + shipping. They have some OEM and Cherry keycaps in the same price range.
I don’t know AKKO first-hand. But I suspect the keys are consistent. Legends are a bit ugly to some, especially in the non-vibrant colourways.
DOMIKEY used to make SA profile and still does, but they’ve branched into Cherry profile. Should be pretty decent quality, maybe best at price-point. You can mix-and-match what you need from some vendors, hopefully you can get what you need under $60:
Tai Hao makes a profile called Cubic, which is basically Cherry at OEM height, I think. It’s squarish. Supposedly they are pretty decent and nothing really wrong with them. Limited colourways, though.
If you aren’t just looking for Cherry-profile, then there are some affordable [actually really cheap sometimes] copies of XDA profile called ZDA profile. Look up both those profiles on AliExpress. That profile isn’t for me, but I have the Matcha PBT set, and the quality is very good. Was like $33 for a full set of perfect keycaps.
There’s a Winter Sale on AliExpress right now, so you could look up AKKO, DOMIKEY, XDA, ZDA, and maybe Cubic profile there.
Also, and this is a different approach, but you might want to look for people selling Leopold PBT keycaps on r/mechmarket.
Leopold makes some of the best PBT double-shots on the market, and they are only available with their keyboards. Some people buy the keyboards just for the keycaps. Others use different keycaps, and sell their Leopold PBT.
Normally, I estimate Leopold PBT would probably sell for $70-90 on its own, if they were offered as commodity sets at a place like Novelkeys. But in the used market, they are often much cheaper, like $35-50.
If you can find dirt-cheap Leopold PBT keycaps [destination board would have to be a standard TKL or full-size ANSI design, tho], they are practically indestructible so you could order them regardless of use.
I just wanted to add to what I was saying about affordable keycaps.
There are some AKKO sets on sale during an Aliexpress Winter Sale right now where you can get a set of PBT keycaps for $56 CAD delivered. That’s Canadian dollars, so I’m talking $45 USD, maybe.
I own a set of AKKO, 9009 Cherry profile. They are okay, but not great. Excessively nice packaging, good plastic, smoother than most PBT caps (but not as smooth as Artifact Bloom), but bad kerning and inconsistencies in line thickness. Buy them only if you don’t care about the legends shape all that much. I’d say Artifact Bloom is a better set overall.
I agree about the legends - it is the most common complaint.
I wouldn’t normally consider the AKKO, as legends are inferior to Artifact Bloom, but I have an ABKO K935P, a Niz dome. The ‘Muted’ set is a quick way to get ‘PBT Muted’ keycaps onto the Niz domes.
So I’m seriously considering it, as it’s about $52 CAD shipped right now.
I think you know this, but just in case — Cherry profile keycaps may not fit on K935P because of the stabilizers. I used to own this keyboard and I remember at least some of my keycap sets did not fit.
Thanks to the CoStar stabilizers, it’s uncertain if all keycaps will fit. But the ABKO uses a form of modified Cherry profile, so it might work.
I tested it by adding some recent ePBT keycaps, including a spacebar. The ePBT spacebar actually works fairly well on the ABKO. I might just leave it like that, but it seems to be working with a Cherry-profile spacebar…
Thanks for the detailed and comprehensive recommendation on keycaps from a few weeks ago, really appreciate it. I looked into all of them and did a ton of more research and soul-searching (I feel like keycaps are definitely the hardest part of a build). I ended up going for some Akko PBT WoB in ASA profile. A bit pricier than I wanted to spend but hopefully worth it. As a person new to the hobby, I’m still shocked that GMK keycaps cost so much, take so long to be delivered, get re-sold at sky high prices, and are essentially never sold as an in-stock product (with Drop collabs being one of the few exceptions).
All of my parts arrived this week, including the Milky browns. I was going to lube them before using them for the first time, but I came across some discussion regarding “breaking in switches.” I understand that the process somewhat varies depending on switch type (and possibly a few other variables I’m not aware of). Do y’all have any advice regarding breaking in these Milky browns? Is it really necessary?
There is some truth in breaking in switches at least in my experience, though the difference wouldn’t be huge.
I personally don’t mind using switches stock and too lazy to lube, on decent switches the difference might not be noticeble (when smooth enough), but when I used awful switches for a while I definitly felt they got just a tiny better (mainly getting less awful) after a month or two of avreage usage (though avreage doesn’t mean much).
This might be significat for switches such as the Creams or Cherrys that are pretty gritty initially, but I personally don’t have any experience.
It’s interesting that you would pick AKKO right now. I ordered some AKKO PBT for the first time a few weeks ago - mine should be arriving soon. Mine are Cherry-profile, though.
I’m going to put them on an ABKO K935P, which is a Niz dome keyboard. The stock keycaps have pad-printed legends, and I’ve been wanting to replace them with a PBT muted set. I think AKKO keycaps will be consistent enough, but their legends are kind of off.
The price of GMK keycaps still stuns people, and there are many discussions of it ongoing. Here’s one of them:
Agreed that keyboard customization would be a much more easygoing and carefree process if quality keycaps were like $20 like they should be. There are reasons [elucidated somewhat in the above thread] why GMK is as expensive as it is.
Seems like quality (custom) keycaps have a minimum price floor. GMK quality is going downhill. Maybe we’ll see quality convergence with Chinese ABS manufacturers [hopefully not price convergence].
Re: breaking-in CAP Milky Browns
In my limited experience so far with these switches, it seems they are not meant for customization. CAP Browns are supposed to work OK out-of-the-box. Supposed to be just a sort of drop-in switch.
CAP Browns seem to use a non-standard stem and spring design. Consequently, it may be more difficult to adjust the weight, for example. They are also heavily-lubed with a special design for containing lube. So they’re not really supposed to be hand-lubed in the aftermarket, I think.
So basically, you’re not really supposed to do anything with them. But if you are going to hand-lube them [one of my batched is hand-lube], I’m not sure how useful a break-in period would be. It makes a lot of sense with naturally-scratchy sawtooth switches like what Cherry produces. In fact, the ‘manual’ for making Ergo Clears from MX Clears essentially says to break-in the Clears for about one-month before lubing.
But since CAP Brown are built smoother and factory-lubed, I’m not sure it’s the same. The break-in is supposed to naturally-wear and smooth out the actual friction contact-points before lubing, so that the lubing more closely reflects and enhances the natural operation of the switch. It works really, really well with vintage Clears and vintage Ergo Clears.
But it seems that there will be less natural-friction smoothing with CAP Brown, given the lube and smoothness. OTOH they do resemble MX Clears a good deal in their bump-profile, so maybe the break-in treatment is useful. I would suspect, though, that the break-in would be less useful with CAP Brown than it is with Ergo Clears. I think CAP Brown will just smooth out from actual lubed usage.
Appreciate your thoughtful reply and advice here. I really do hope in the long run we get more high quality GMK alternatives at reasonable prices and delivery in a reasonable timeframe. Hopefully this will result in a more accessible hobby for all.
The gateron milky browns I got are from here. I don’t think those are CAP milky browns, but I get the feeling that your advice would apply to them just the same. They do come factory lubed, but the product description does recommend additional hand-lubing.
I see your point about how if I’m going to hand lube them anyway, a break-in period wouldn’t result in a lot of value added. But after considering everything, I think I will try breaking them in regardless. I’ll use them as my daily driver for a few weeks to break them in (I’m pretty much on the computer for 14hrs a day). I guess the way I see it, I’m in no hurry to finish the build, so the cost of breaking in is low for me—with the added bonus that I get to put off the task of hand-lubing them just a bit longer. I’m also itching to just assemble the board and get to using it.
Oh, ok. I missed that they were regular Milky Brown instead of CAP Brown. I have CAP Brown on my mind right now.
The long-and-short of it is that breaking-in before lubing will have some helpful effect on your switches, however marginal.
Gateron are known to be smoother than Cherry. Cherry benefits a lot from break-in because they are rough. Really good to break-in Clears before lubing, for example.
Since your switches are regular Milky Brown, they aren’t lubed as much as CAP Brown, and so will benefit from careful lubing after break-in. [Even though break-in may yield less than with Cherry].
Presumably, you have a hot-swap or some means of breaking them in.
I do not believe in breaking in switches. I doubt it exists. First, I never felt the effect on my own new keyboards. But also consider this: how often you press, let’s say, Scroll Lock? Only accidentally or to check what color the LED is. So it’s going to stay not broken in indefinitely, or, at least, it would take a very long time to break it in. If breaking in was a thing, then keys on used keyboards would feel very different between most and least used keys. I tried many used keyboards and I can’t say there is a difference.
If you break-in a switch for a month, then you “should” naturally wear away where your typing creates contact points.
This wear will serve as a natural guide for your lubing - you will be smoothing and streamlining where you have created channels for smoothing.
That seems to be the idea, AFAIK. As opposed to just slapping on lube on an un-worn switch where you haven’t created any typing wear.
I’ve tried MX Clears and Ergo Clears that were lubed after a break-in period, and they were very good. But those are Cherry switches we’re talking about. I’m not sure how much Gaterons would benefit, but it wouldn’t hurt, I guess.