Is it normal for the dialectric grease to rub off your stabs?

Learning and discussion
1

Hey everyone, just wanting to ask a quick question to the community. It seems like I have trouble lubing my stabs enough (despite applying liberal amounts of dialectric grease) to completely eliminate the rattle.

I have tried applying dialectric grease to both my Niz Plum (which uses Costar stabs) and my friend’s Royal Kludge (which uses Cherry or Cherry clone stabs). But while this eliminates rattle for a short period of time, eventually the annoying rattle or ‘clack’ by just touching the keycap returns (especially the spacebar).

I’m wondering if this is normal and the re-application of the lube/grease is normal? Because they wear out usually within a couple of days.

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2

i started having this issue when building earlier this year. i switched to using purely 205g0 on stabs and I haven’t had issues since.

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3

so is 205g0 better for the wires than dialetric grease? I heard sometimes the opposite…

4

Interesting, I’ll give it a try. Do you mind sharing more details if you lubed it in the same way (applying a thick coating on the wire) and which type of stabs you were using?

5

Yes it is normal for lube to settle in & eventually wear out, needing refreshed. It does tend to happen faster with looser no name factory stabs & sometimes it’s not even about the lube. If the housings/inserts of plate mount cherry/costar stabs is not super tight in the plate it will rattle no matter what. In that case some electrical tape works well to shim the plate holes out.

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6

I got many suggestions for the same problem, at the end the cotton “balls” (more like a thin wrapping/stuffing) worked for me, even if it can make the bottom-out a bit mushy (the right amount is tricky to get consistently). Still beats rattle in my book.

Another set of stabs (supposedly Cherry) that I later used for another build doesn’t have this problem at all. So it does come down to the product, like @Rob27shred said.

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7

Yes this happens over time as you use it more and more. I find that dielectric grease doesn’t really stick on the wire that well. It’s thick but it’s not really sticky. I have the same problem with 205g2 on wires, they’re thick but not that sticky. I have to mix some 105 in it to make it stick to the wire better. And I think this is what people is trying to avoid by using the XHT BDZ grease on the wire, that stuff looks like it sticks so much to the wire.

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