Vintage Cherry MX blue

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Not quite sure what to make of this, considering the quality of machine translation:

http://kbtalking.cool3c.com/article/29596

Looks like a keyboard has both vintage and "new" Cherry MX blue switches, with different springs, but sufficiently similar in force to be placed into the same keyboard side by side.

There's also a photo of some possibly previously unknown (in the West) shades of blue.

[Daemon Raccoon]

Woah, an 'Aqua', 'Lavender', 'Sky Blue', and 'Navy'.

EDIT: Oh wait, that's just an off shade Green.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Actually, I think there's only one new shade. Green, we know. Dark blue (on the right), we know. I mistook the third one for a new shade, but it's just a lot better lit than the photos before it.

Incidentally, ever noticed that RGB keycap sets often get the colours wrong?

http://deskthority.net/wiki/RGB_modifiers

Of the two photos I took of my black G80-3000, one was taken without the flash and the colours are pretty accurate. In the other, I photoshopped the blue to reverse the effect of the flash, as (at leash with the flash bulb in my camera), medium blue tends to get converted into a cyan more like webwit's Filco Zero photo (which appears to be genuine, as it doesn't look like he used the flash — the EXIF data only contains the filename, while it appears that every photo I've taken since I bought this PC (so, the last year) has the EXIF data preserved even though I re-save them all to reduce JPEG size).

But yes, there appears to also be a Cherry MX Lavender ...

[kint]

Your post just reminded me of a Chicony 5193R I had in my hands few days ago, half vintage MX blue, half non vintage. maybe 55 to 50 switches. So I just dug it out and unsoldered one of each, pictures will be up in a second.

edit:

chicony5193R-MXblue.jpg (395.3 KiB) Viewed 4585 times

left-vin-right-new.jpg (335.52 KiB) Viewed 4585 times

MXbluspring-left-vin-right-new.jpg (308.31 KiB) Viewed 4585 times

Left switch is "vintage" as for the cherry logo. Bottom says 546 A
right switch is a "new" one, bottom 530 A
Top cover of the vintage one says 157 whilst the new one says 557.
Left, vintage spring has 11 coil counts, right new one has 11,5.
Colour is different too, vintage one is rather a copper tone, whilst the new one is a blue steel tone.
As for the stem, the vintage one is marked 4 and 6 (maybe 8) on the backside of the cross, whilst the new one is marked 2 and 2. Hope this helps in any way.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Here's some clearer photos of the colours:

http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8 ... t2467.html

Chicony, the same as yours.

[tlt]

Maybe Chicony made those during Cherry's transition to new blues.

[Gloomy Moonie]

Hey,
Can you tell whether there is an audible difference in click pitch between the vintage, non-vintage and perhaps a newer MX blue, if you have one at hand? Would be even nicer if you could note their travel friction, i.e. "scratchiness".

[davkol]

Necromancy time!

There are a lot of switches in between. I have some with the older kind of spring and old logo ("thinner"), but newer stem. These feel like the modern blues IMHO. I've found some older switches as well though, with an older type of stem…

If the stem doesn't have the "tooth" in the crossbar, it's almost certainly the old type, that makes quiet click. Smoothness is mostly a matter of switch housings IME.