Mould duration

[Daniel Beardsmore]

How long do injection moulds last?

For example, if you're making switch shells, or double-shot keycaps, how many injections can you run before the mould wears and has to be replaced?

For example, my 1992 Tai-Hao keycaps — would those moulds still be serviceable to this day (for the recent group buy), or would they have been retooled since then?

I'm also thinking about Alps switches and all the weird slit/logo/numbering combinations — I don't know enough about injection moulding to get a clear idea of how likely the different Alps factories would want to retool on a whim, and how often retooling would be a necessity due to mould wear.

[Muirium]

Based on lazy Googling, I'm seeing a figure of "1 million cycles" coming up as an upper bound. Like both these links:

http://www.htiplastic.com/blog/2012-03- ... tion-molds
http://www2.basf.us//PLASTICSWEB/displa ... e180004878

Naturally, you'd have to imagine that Alps had more than one mold* in use simultaneously for volume items like switch shells. But how many, who knows?

So perhaps Tai-Hao could still be using the same molds. Depends on how much bother it is to store them / keep them production ready vs. making new ones, I'd imagine. But all those distorted Alps logos and the like… hmm. Wear, mistreatment, or bad mold mastering? All seem credible.

*This is one instance where I prefer the Murcan spelling to our own. "Mould" sounds like "ye olde mowlede" to me, which is to say pants. Which, over here, is to say underpants. I never did understand that one…

[Daniel Beardsmore]

The distorted Alps logos are what started me thinking about this. It's not damage, far from it.

MouseFan's timeline was really simple: the "slits" disappeared from Alps switches in 1993. This was assumed to have been achieved with new moulds.

It's actually far more complicated. Some mould have the slits filled in, like someone had filed down the protrusions in the mould that created them. Some switches have clean moulds made afresh. In the logo era (ca. 1988 onwards), some switches have the current boldface logo, and some have the previous logo (introduced ca. 1988). There is no sequence here: HalfSaint's Chicony keyboard has switches with the current logo, but with slits, while there are switches with the slits removed, but with the previous logo. Some tooling had the slits removed first, and other tooling had the logo updated first.

This confusion only makes sense if a) the tooling has to be renewed quite often, and b) Alps had several factories that didn't work in step. I suspect some overflow manufacturing capacity went to Forward Electronics, probably those with the lumpy Alps logo similar to simplified Alps.

I am not sure who made the ones with the distorted logos and hand-carved numbering, but I am pretty sure that was not Japan. All the "funny" Alps switches seem to have something in common: a complete disinterest in orientation. Japan-made Alps switches always have the legs at the back. The handwritten ones and lumpylogo ones are indiscriminate and the branding and numbering was moulded both ways up. I am hoping to be allowed to use these photos, which shows the random orientation:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/270794697731
http://www.ebay.com/itm/270795152459

(HaaTa's asked the seller on my behalf as I won't use eBay, but no reply to date.)

I do have some of those switches in an Ortek keyboard. I might be able to get an upside down one out without having to either desolder the whole PCB (oh noes) or hacksaw up the PCB and plate to get at the retention clips (I have no idea how people desolder and remove just one MX switch — so far as I can tell it's impossible without removing the whole PCB to unclip the switch from the plate). That's why I'm putting off trying to do anything with that keyboard, as it's incredibly scuzzy. There's a Futaba lock switch that I want out of it, too; since no-one else is willing to post a photo of one to the wiki (and several people have them) I've posted a photo of the one from my keyboard — you can see how bad it is:

http://deskthority.net/wiki/Futaba_lock

However, removing a single switch is going to be hard, especially that Futaba.

[webwit]

According to old folktales, the Alps logos were distorted on purpose because Alps sold the equipment and the new guys tried to remove the Alps logos from the molds.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I am not aware that Alps ever sold any keyboard switch tooling to anyone. I'm referring to the switches you can see in those two eBay auctions — they're genuine complicated Alps, but they're not using the same moulds. The logos weren't engraved correctly into the moulds originally.

Genuine internals in one of mine (it arrived broken):

Plum white Alps.jpg (248.76 KiB) Viewed 3186 times

[Daemon Raccoon]

*This is one instance where I prefer the Murcan spelling to our own. "Mould" sounds like "ye olde mowlede" to me, which is to say pants. Which, over here, is to say underpants. I never did understand that one…

As an American, I prefer 'mould' for molds that aren't biological in nature.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Ah, like how I use "program" for computer software, and "programme" for the stuff shown on the telly. I resolutely use "disc" in violation of the bizarre split where it's supposed to be "disk" unless it's a Compact Disc, as that's just nuts.

[webwit]

There's the distorted and the faded Alps logos and they were attributed to deliberate attempt to remove the branding, but not damage the mold or change tolerances. Probably by Sandy55 or Chloe, I don't remember. I think this was a time when most clones or continuations were simply attributed to "Strongman". Your research is much more sophisticated so I'll leave it up to you determine the value of this info.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Simplified Alps go back to 1996, apparently. The earliest datasheet I have (that Chloe found) is from 1999, and that's from Forward, not Alps. I have little reason to believe otherwise than that Forward always made them.

The Alps logos disappeared quietly. All we know is that the Tactile Pro had white Alps originally, but most of them had grey Alps without Matias noticing, and the difference between white and grey isn't known. The Tactile Pro 2 was supposed to have grey "Strong Man switches" (according to Strong Man), but the colour didn't change (they were already grey before), and it may be that Strong Man took advantage of some requirement that Forward de-brand the switches when their 30-year partnership with Alps ended. The removal of the logo meant that they could start pretending they made them.

The only mould changes I can think of:

1. Slits in complicated Alps filled in (later moulds were made without them altogether, but it looks like originally they were filled in)
2. "Japan" blocked out on later Omron B3G-S (which suggests that the tooling was physically transported abroad, as retooling wouldn't require any writing to be obscured)
3. These shady [wiki]Apple hairpin spring[/wiki] switches, made within Apple's patent period and with the Apple logo blocked out: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=49015.0 — though it's not proven that the OEM altered the moulds, or that the switches even came from the same OEM; I just can't see Apple permitting their logo to be removed from their patented product!

There are some actual fake Alps (Alps-shaped clones) but none of them are branded.

I don't know what Sandy or Chloe was referring to — complicated or simplified.

[Findecanor]

As an American, I prefer 'mould' for molds that aren't biological in nature.

I once believed that "mould" referred to biological mould and "mold" to casting moulds.

[Muirium]

I actually thought that too! I only ever saw the biological one spelled out. And it's so awkward looking I assumed there was a reason for it.

About that one million figure I gave above: there's plenty of lower numbers for cheaper moldings, too. Much depends on how big you want your production run to be, and on the specific nature of the components that you're molding. Switch assemblies don't strike me as especially tough or fussy, though.

[Findecanor]

Also, many times, lots of parts are moulded in the same shot. I would wager that the small numbers on the Alps casing are mould numbers.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I guess that so long as the tolerances are met for fitting the upper and lower shell together, and for the slider to not grip the guide shaft instead of slide, you're OK. One million injections is 9 800 102-key ISO keyboards. I have no idea how big their machinery was and how many switch parts they were moulding at once. I also have no idea how many Alps keyboards were being sold.

Interesting point about the mould numbering: early Alps switches only had two mould IDs: a single letter (NW) and an alphanumeric code (NE), e.g. N / 5H. Himake used to have nothing more than a number from 1–100.

Around the time that Alps added the logo to the moulds, they added a third ID (single digit SW), and replaced the NW letter with a number, e.g. 1 / 24P / 4. The highest code I've seen at the top right is four digits. I thought I'd seen one > 100, but I am not sure; Sandy's white damped is 1 / 30DE / 6.

The suggestion from the increased numbers is that they were expanding manufacturing capacity. White damped doesn't seem to be popular enough to justify such a high number, but since the non-linear upper shells are all interchangeable (the lower shells are not). Some of the strange moulding suggest that they were hiring factories abroad to cut costs and/or expand capacity, and these factories were only interested in following the specification, not in aesthetics.