Things that make us go... hmmm šŸ¤”

Iā€™ve had weeks-long wait times with ā€œin stockā€ items from Vala on multiple occasions, including at this time last year.

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Rama kate? What timeline are we on :face_with_raised_eyebrow:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/1gxss7r/well_ill_be_damned_3_years_later_rama_kate/

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Well, I certainly havenā€™t gotten the set I ordered, or confirmation on the change of address form I filled out. Makes me wonder if the original orders will be fulfilled or if heā€™ll just be selling this like a new product. I know clones have been around for a while.

Edit: RAMAā€™s support page no longer exists :man_shrugging: It was at least up and accepting tickets a few months ago, but now itā€™s gone completely. :stuck_out_tongue: I sent a support message to Zfrontier on the off chance I could somehow get my caps from them, ha

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I was trying to track down a song I had in my head that I knew was on my liked songs on spotify. I remember it coming on in the car last week and I thought ā€œyou know, this is probably the type of music I would like to make. This guy is really talented and I love the sounds he creates.ā€

So I spend 30 minutes going through all of my liked songs from the past 9 years. Yeahā€¦ thatā€™s a lot of music. But a lot I can skip through because I know itā€™s an artist name I wouldnā€™t recognize.

Anywayā€¦ find the song, find the artist. It was from 2016. This guy has a whopping 64 monthly listeners on Spotify. Guess I just have weird taste in music :man_shrugging: :thinking:

Also an bit of extra here, I realized my spotify was somehow set to stream ā€œnormalā€ quality with ā€œautomatic settingsā€ on and auto leveling of volume across songs. Holy crap, what terrilbe defaults. I swear I had changed that before :thinking:

But I turned all that shit off and put it to ā€œvery highā€ and itā€™s night and day better sounding. :metal:

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Just to close the loop here on adventures in auction gambling, it was indeed a Ducky One 2 Mini (not the Pro), with soldered Cherry Reds. A little dirty, but fully working. The on-board-only programming that Ducky goes with seemsā€¦ extensiveā€¦ andā€¦ interesting. Unfortunately, this one appears to be the part number that uses a no-QMK microcontroller.

I think the HyperX caps were aftermarket, as the collab version is said to have HyperX switches, and these are definitely Cherry. No matter. Those caps will be going as soon as I figure out what to use this thing for. You may (or may not, LOL) be surprised to know I didnā€™t actually own any proper 60% boards, so a nice enough addition. All in all, I paid $25 shipped and got about twenty-five bucks worth of keyboard. Calling this one a draw. :rofl:

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Crappy defaults to you, but not for Spotify where they think and are betting on majority of users not noticing a difference so theyā€™re saving on Internet bandwidth with streaming ā€œnormalā€ vs. higher quality.

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Did a little poking and confirmed a few things:

  • KATE / CAPS are being made

  • Zfrontier is the manu

  • They are aiming to make good on existing orders, butā€¦

  • Production funds werenā€™t paid in full so fulfillment plans for existing orders are still unclear

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Directive Deadeye at work!

Sounds like Rama should have used the money from sales to make the products purchased instead of pursuing punitive lawsuits to console his bruised ego. I hope that dude is made to pay up.

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So I finally got around to finally modding some of the MX2A switches I got, MX Oranges in particular. Iā€™m planning on doing them on the POM plate for my Virgo build. Although what brings me here is the MX2As are way way way more different from former Cherry switches than I ever though they would be. The housings are much tighter fitting than Cherry has ever had & the plastic even feels to be a good bit stiffer than what was used for previous MX iterations. Like to the point I am completely forgoing films with them as the donā€™t add any benefit & are a very tight fit. Also the springs are much more consistent feeling from switch to switch & much less scratchy/pingy (the latter could be down to the lube though).

Whatā€™s got me scratching my head is I wonder if they are using completely new & fresh molds vs just a retool of the HG molds? Also if they are using fresh molds (which I think they are) how much that has to do with the tighter fitting stiffer feeling housings? Or did they actually change the plastic blend they use for the housing enough for that to play into it as well. Thankfully they still have that classic Cherry sound & slight scratch to the feel so they obviously canā€™t be using a vastly different plastic blend. However just the feel of opening them up & putting them back together is telling me something changed a good bit between HGs & MX2As. Actually pretty impressed by MX2As so far, if they perform just as good or better than HGs in use Iā€™m gonna say MX2As are a way bigger win for Cherry than I originally gave them credit for!

Iā€™d like to know what you guys who have used or modded MX2As think of them now? I know Iā€™m a little crazy, but the differences Iā€™m feeling with MX2As canā€™t all be in my head! :rofl: :thinking:

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I have Glarses Cherry Purples (they are MX2A) that I recently prepared for a build in one of my future Aquanaut keyboards.
Didnā€™t used Cherry for quite a long time, so canā€™t tell the difference with OG switches.

I can feel the leavery scratch on them indeed, but it is contained compared to Cherry browns I typed on long time ago that were horribly scratchy :stuck_out_tongue:

I kept the spring (perfect weight for a tactile in my opinion), just lubed the stem with 304 and the spring with 105. I kept the lube on the bottom of the switch, not sure it would change anything to ping or smoothnes anyway.
I did filmed them, but maybe as you said it was not necessary ā€¦
The film slots firmly in the outer part of the bottom rails and does not move, this makes film installation a breeze!
On all other Gateron switches I tried the film moves, collides with the stem (or worse the spring) making this step a nighmare.

I may buy new Nixies in the future for my F1-8X v2.

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Thanks for chiming in! I guess not a lot people here have messed with MX2As too much yet. That is the 2 impressive things to me though. Even though I am convinced they made substantial changes to the housings, they still retain the signature Cherry feel & sound. Then the springs really do seems to be a huge upgrade from the trash theyā€™ve been using up till now. I ended up swapping the MX Oranges I am working on to Geon 18mm 45g springs, but think I am gonna keep the stock springs in the batch of MX2A browns I just got.

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The new Cherry Nixie is also MX2A and widely praised for itā€™s feel and sound, even @ThereminGoat made a very positive review of this switch.

This is why I am starting to get curious about it, and maybe buy some for my future F1-8X v2 :wink:

As for the MX Purple, this is really a Cherry Clear switch with an MX2A base.
The stem is the same but with different color, needing to trim it with my GEON trimmer.
Otherwise the spring is looking really nice with a perfect weight to my taste, this at least is something that do not need a change to make an MX Ergo Clear like switchā€¦
I still do not understand the benefit of the ā€˜jizzā€™ they put as a lube in the bottom part :smiley:

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The new Nixie is my favorite switch. This is also from someone who has used stock cherry blacks for years, soā€¦ :man_shrugging:

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How are Nixies stock? Iā€™m mostly resigned to the fact that Iā€™m never going to lube any switches if I can avoid itā€¦

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They feel perfectly fine to me. They get smoother as the factory lube job is moved around from the bottom puddle they add. My idea of smooth is warped though because I like stock MX Blacks and have for a long time.

They also feel a little heavier to me than standard MX Blacks

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I have really been liking Nixies lately as well. I think I fee the same, I like the sound better than my MX Blacks. I just bought some on black friday from Divinkey.

I got some recent Cherry MX2A switches, they were interesting. They use the ā€œdonut dipā€ style of lubing. It is kind of heavy though. I spring swapped and oiled the springs but didnā€™t really try to remove any of the existing lube either.

I think they turned out a little meh compared to my unlubed, hyperglide Browns. However, I think they will get better with time once I use them more. Just got to get that little 205g0 I put on and the stock lube moved around more. The Nixies took some time as well I felt like.

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I agree with everything above, love the new nixie sound and feel. A bit heavier than standard black, yes but just right for me. Also, I have been swapping in MX Silent stems for a slightly muted sound. Certainly not silent, still poppy on return and the bottom out isnā€™t nearly as mushy as one would expect.

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I did not know that many Choc v1 switches have a stabilizer IN the switch. I got a batch of black Choc v1s and couldnā€™t for the life of me understand why when I shook the switch I heard a rattle.

I opened one up and out came the stem, the springā€¦ and a stabilizer.

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I found my old C64 in the basement and cleaned it up a little. I used to use this thing in middle school and didnā€™t realize how goofy the keyboard layout is. 9u spacebar - 2 arrow keys - backspace in top left

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