deskthority

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for some cheap keyboards with some real tact switches that are clicky. I searched a bit around the forums and found a cheap offer for ones with cherry MX black, but according to the wiki those aren't clicky. I'm located in germany, by the way.

If you could help me I would appreaciate it a lot.

edit:
http://www.amazon.de/gp/offer-listing/B ... ition=used

The link to the offer for anyone who sees this and is interested. It's been posted a few times, though.

MX black is linear, not tactile or clicky.

That's my dilemma

Willkommen bei DT!

If your question is if there's an offer like that somewhere with Cherry MX Blue switches (which are clicky and tactile), then the answer is probably no. MX black is much more common in vintage Cherry keyboards than MX blue, that's the only reason why you can even find extremely cheap offers like this.

Your best bet will be to look for used keyboards with Cherry MX blue on ebay.de or our marketplace in this forum, but expect to pay at least 40-50 € for a used MX blue board.

Or get a used IBM Model M, which is very clicky and tactile, too, but the prices for those are in the same range.

Danke!

That's a bummer. Thanks for the help though. I'm using an acer 6312 right now, which I really like, but you can't repurpose those switches, because they rely on a membrane.

Ah, my bad for reading in a hurry earlier. MX blacks are worth a try, actually. You'd be surprised how much noise they make, despite no "click". In fact people new to keyboards often describe any MX board as clicky. That's because bottoming out and topping out still makes a sound. Here's an example with an MX red keyboard.

Ducky Shine 3 with MX reds and Cherry stabs. Pretty noisy for linear, right? Here's what clicky MX sounds like:

Shiny 60% with MX greens and no stabs! You get the same noise as before, with extra clicks on top! And for comparison here is the noise champion buckling spring:

IBM Model M SSK with Costar-style stabs I made all these recordings, and the levels are the same. I've also got the Acer board you mention. It's okay but expect more tactility and noise from MX blue or green, and a whole lot more from IBM!

That's all very informative, thank you! I actually did order one of those keyboards to see what it was like. If I don't like it, I'll just desolder the switches and use them in some other project. I've also had a member of this forum reach out to me, offering me a board with MX-blue switches at 12.5 cents a switch, which seems fair to me.

Cool. I'm immensely unknowledgable about Cherry keyboards (haven't owned one since the mid 1990s) but the MX black board you ordered may be PCB mount. That means you can open the switches while they're still installed, and pop in some clicky innards from those blues. In fact, you could experiment with reds and greens as well as blacks and blues. You will have all the components! Green = blue slider + black spring. Red = black slider + blue spring. The springs aren't colour coded, but you'll see and feel the difference.

We call the resulting hybrid switches "ghetto greens", "ghetto reds" etc. Here's a howto:

http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/i-di ... t2458.html

Let's hope it's PCB mount.

Yes, it's definitely PCB mount and you can do that. I also ordered an G80-1800 from the Amazon deal, and it's a great price. The case is quite yellowed though and some kind of label in the upper left corner has been visibly scratched off, so it's not a very nice-looking keyboard.

If you got an MX blue board for the price you mentioned you were really lucky.