Cherry Corp PBTs?

[manfaux]

I saw sixty's cherry corp keys glossary, and immediately wanted a set of these beautiful dye sub keys, I assume they only come in the "S" suffix right?



I looked everywhere and I don't think I've come even close to finding one.. so I will settle on these lasered PBTs, how do I tell if it's indeed PBT if all I'm getting is a picture and model number from the seller?


thanks for any input

[sixty]

The new ones are PBT also, but they are much thinner. Its pretty hard to find the old ones without pulling a keycap. The first safe indicator is that it uses the Bi-Color scheme (meaning F5,6,7,8, etc... are a different shade of grey and not all white). Other than that you will have to gamble. I've seen thin ones start appearing as early as 97.

[amleth]

If you want a thicker keytops, try Cherry 11800 series. Especially for dot-projection keytops (F/J keytops which has small bulging dot). But, you still have a chance for thinner keytops too. If you have line-shaped-projecton F/J keytops, that must be thinner ones.

Oh, If you do not mind German arrangements, the changces going up much higher. Some of standard 3000 German series have a thick ones.

Need some more hard information ? Sorry do not know anymore. and, Most of Cherry keytops are PBT.

By the way.
Does anybody know how to distinguish PBT from POM ?
Is there anyway to do that easily and uncompromisingly ?

This Guru says this way, that Guru says that way. I think both of them do not know anything about it.

[amleth]

Earlier, I put ABS/PBT/POM in boiling water. Less than 2min. ABS lost their shape. Misshaped ugly. But, POM has very little impact (but, for sure misshaped). PBT ? Perfect, nothing have changed.

Oops, ABS was not Cherry. PBT was thinner 8000 series and POM was black double-shot Cherry.

[sixty]

Without heating it or some chemical tests I don't think there is an easy way to be 100% sure of the plastic type.

[webwit]

Heh, throwing them in boiling water to see what material they are made of is good.
Reminds me of the medical witch hunt. To prove you are not a witch, get thrown in the water with weights, and if you don't float, you win.

[amleth]

OK, then let us boil that bigmouthed Gurus and their no-brain worshippers.

[sixty]

Speaking of analyzing stuff... I sent two switches (old mx black and new mx black) to a laboratory for analyzes of both the plastic and the metal. Sadly it costs $600. Anyone wanna donate?

[webwit]

How much does your CEO earn?

[amleth]

(old mx black and new mx black)

Do you want to be another the Gasbag Guru ?

Please tell me how do you distinguish new model from old model ?

Moreover, Can you prepare new one of MX black old model ?
If not, you have to prepare two MX blacks which have the exactly same wearness. Is it possible ?

(in my personal point of view, it is just waste of your energy. Myth is just myth. Let it go.)

[sixty]

(old mx black and new mx black)

Do you want to be another the Gasbag Guru ?

Please tell me how do you distinguish new model from old model ?

Moreover, Can you prepare new one of MX black old model ?
If not, you have to prepare two MX blacks which have the exactly same wearness. Is it possible ?

(in my personal point of view, it is just waste of your energy. Myth is just myth. Let it go.)

I have already done these comparisons. I compared several NIB old switches to several NIB new switches. So the wear factor is ruled out. On the outside there is an easy way to tell if the switch is "old generation". The logo on the old switches is wider, while on new switches it is more narrow. If you open the switch its also easy to tell. The old generation switches have a darker colored spring, almost black. The new ones have a very shiny silvery spring. The new spring is also a tiny bit smaller (~1mm, about half a coil).

I asked Cherry about this last year and they confirmed that the material for all springs changed in 1995 or 1996. If you compare this to old Cherry catalogs, you will notice that at the same time the switches also got rated up to "50 million operations" from the "20 million operations" before. Their explanation is that the new material is more resistant to corrosion.

I did not believe in the difference between switches until a while ago, but I have confirmed it myself and got further confirmation about a change in the source steel for the springs. So these facts can't be denied. Old switches to me feel much smoother than the new ones, they also do not have that cranky sound when depressing.

Note: Everything I expressed above is only the case for MX Black switches in specific. I do not feel a difference in MX Blues.

[ripster]

Chemical/Heat Testing for plastic procedure is here.
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:14831

Boiling point in Holland is much higher because they like building countries below sea level. What a stubborn people! The only people more stubborn are Germans!

[amleth]

by sixty

So..


What do you exactly mean old generation MX black ?

You mean 15 to 16 years older means OLD ?
The wider embossed Cherry logo means OLD ?
For spring, the longer/darker the OLDer ? Is that right ?


and..


You are concentrated your effort not on a slider but a spring. is that right ?
What kind of relationship has a spring material with the smoother feeling of human ?
What kind of relationship has a spring force with the smoother feeling of human ?

The material of spring does not matter at all. Have you ever seen any broken spring because of OLD or fatigue or something like that ? The life expectancy of a spring is (almost) eternal. I do not know what exactly Cherry engineers (or Sales dpt.) explanation confirmed about what, but lifespan is not the point. Smooth feeling is a relationship of wearness between two things. In switch, it means slider and brass OR slider and casing. Evidently, not with spring.



First of all, you have to make clear and distinct milestone to distinguish OLD from NEW.

Nobody knows how one switch is 15/16 years old just from their outside.
Cherry logo is not that much hard evidence (I did not confirmed myself though, it could be confronted with first criterion).



By the way, What is the MX blue lifespan ? 50 mil ? Am i right ?
Why is that ? It should be waste more energy than the MX black. Click sound mean waste of energy and it means the shorter life span than black ones. Am i wrong ? How can two switches have the same life ?

[sixty]

by sixty

Nobody knows how one switch is 15/16 years old just from their outside.
Cherry logo is not that much hard evidence (I did not confirmed myself though, it could be confronted with first criterion).

This is easy to tell by the production year of the keyboard though. For me I rate old switches from 1986-1995.

By the way, What is the MX blue lifespan ? 50 mil ? Am i right ?
Why is that ? It should be waste more energy than the MX black. Click sound mean waste of energy and it means the shorter life span than black ones. Am i wrong ? How can two switches have the same life ?

This is where the problems start. Even Cherry is not entirely sure, and does not even know their own product stock well enough. A member on kbdmania has asked me to contact Cherry to ask how long MX Blues last, because a Korean company (XArmor?... some gaming keyboard), says it will last 50 million circles, while others say 20 million circles.

So here is what happened:

I sent a physical letter to Cherry asking for the lifespan of the MX Blue switch. I got no reply. I sent an e-mail asking the same question. They sent a reply after a few days telling me that the switch rating is 50 million cycles. At the same time, ZF Asia (Cherry Asia) told me the same, 50 million cycles. Now get the cool part. About a week later I receive a written answer from Cherry in the mail, in reply to my original snail-mail letter. The letter is telling me that the lifecycle is 20 million switches and the "50 million" is probably a mistake in their catalog, that should only be valid for MX Black.

This is where the problems all start... how can we paranoid collectors agree if even the damn company doesn't have their facts straight?

[webwit]

Boiling point in Holland is much higher because they like building countries below sea level.

Is the accuracy of that thermometer +- 3% or +- 1%?

[amleth]

ripster

Nice job (as always).

I heard about boiling water testing from some Chinese.

And simply, put several keytops into boiling water with no gauage and no clock.

[webwit]

I recommend that ripster performs various boiling tests for a variety of keycaps.

[amleth]

Nop. That is enough.
Boiling is boring. Only 100 degrees. That is it.

How about boiling oil ? Melting pot of hell..

[amleth]

You have to have doubleblind for sure.
Production year label does not help you anymore. It is just tough.

I got one bag (really).
It has almost a hundred blacks, comes from three different boards - old(?) TG3, old(?) German-Cherry and relatively new(?) (but too much used) Czech-Cherry.

I am not a guru. So, I can not figure it out clearly.
I think, Feeling is myth. If not, it is almost myth.


And, for lifespan of Blue.
Yes, keyboard biz is just old and not that much benifit from there. Nobody cares.

[webwit]

amleth of the best troll on deskthority. Half the time you have no idea what he is talking about, and still you feel kinda offended. Me, I usually cruise motorcycle forums, and tell them that it is all the same crap and that Harley Davidson sucks.

[sixty]

You have to have doubleblind for sure.
Production year label does not help you anymore. It is just tough.

It does not help if you have only the switch - that is true. If you have a keyboard, it sure is an indicator though.

I got one bag (really).
It has almost a hundred blacks, comes from three different boards - old(?) TG3, old(?) German-Cherry and relatively new(?) (but too much used) Czech-Cherry.

Same here... I don't think its a good idea to mix switches though. I had pretty bad results due to varying amounts of use. By the way, the Czech company used older parts for a longer period compared to the German factory. They even still made G80s with the old case until a year ago! Now I got you even more confused. Apologies.

And, for lifespan of Blue.
Yes, keyboard biz is just old and not that much benifit from there. Nobody cares.

That is true. Sad but true.

[amleth]

> by webwit » 13 minutes ago

I know all myth about MX OLD black feelings. And there are way wrong myth regarding feelings about custom boards built upon the black ones. In that stage of explanation. That is not myth anymore. It is a rip off arts.

[amleth]

Feeling bad.
I talked too much.
Sorry, it is not my yard. Offending is not my first intention (maybe the third or somemore lower, i admit.)
Thanks, guys..
Have Fun..

[sixty]

Feeling bad.
I talked too much.
Sorry, it is not my yard. Offending is not my first intention (maybe the third or somemore lower, i admit.)
Thanks, guys..
Have Fun..

No need to feel bad. We are quite hard to be insulted and we do not moderate or delete posts. Whatever you feel like saying will likely be fine.

[ripster]

You have to argue/troll about stuff in the forums. Helps ensure the Wikis are 100% accurate and well reasoned out.


OCN Mechanical Keyboard Guide thread with 11,000 posts and little content is the classic example of this.

[ripster]

We are quite hard to be insulted and we do not moderate or delete posts. Whatever you feel like saying will likely be fine.

I hear in real life Webwit is quite a sensitive person. Or maybe that's just when he is drunk.

[webwit]

Here's a picture of me the last time I was drunk. I just start wearing keyboards as a hat.

drunk.jpg (167.88 KiB) Viewed 6890 times

[ripster]

At least I'm not huffing R0-59 in that pic. My parole officer would get after me.

[manfaux]

The new ones are PBT also, but they are much thinner. Its pretty hard to find the old ones without pulling a keycap. The first safe indicator is that it uses the Bi-Color scheme (meaning F5,6,7,8, etc... are a different shade of grey and not all white). Other than that you will have to gamble. I've seen thin ones start appearing as early as 97.

wow, thanks for all these info guys,

I confirmed with a couple of Chinese cherry collectors, they seem to agree that if you have one with scooped F/J, it's most likely thick PBTs!

[manfaux]

By the way.
Does anybody know how to distinguish PBT from POM ?
Is there anyway to do that easily and uncompromisingly ?

This Guru says this way, that Guru says that way. I think both of them do not know anything about it.

If you are only talking about Cherrys, easy, Cherry uses POM on black keys(non double shots) and PBT for white/grey keys,