Cherry MX Silent?

[chzel]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2 ... x-silent/1
http://hexus.net/tech/news/peripherals/ ... -launched/
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Tastature ... t-1166850/

It seems Cherry launched another Corsair exclusive!
From what I gather, they use Alps-style dampers and they will come in Red and Black.
Any of the CM reps around for more info???

[Muirium]

Naturally, I'm intrigued. Any chance they can lube them right too!

[chzel]

Smooth (like vintage) AND silent MX Blacks...Oh the joy!

[seebart]

Remains to be seen...

[Muirium]

Yeah, I'd be surprised! Positively so.

[Chyros]

Hmmm, so they wisely went for the Alps dampening design. Good choice, it's a simple yet very effective mechanism. Wonder what these are like. Tbh Cherry switches weren't all that loud apart from the blue variety...

[chzel]

No matter how good they will be, there will probably be a "Don't touch, only we can play with it" policy from Corsair...
And I'm not too keen on buying a 160€ keyboard to harvest switches!

[Muirium]

Hmmm, so they wisely went for the Alps dampening design. Good choice, it's a simple yet very effective mechanism. Wonder what these are like.

I wonder. MX doesn't have the room, or the fundamental geometry, for the way Alps did it. I'm keen to see where exactly they put the damping. And what material it is. Could be hard for us to copy. Could even be destroyed whenever people open up a switch. Needs to be seen.

Tbh Cherry switches weren't all that loud apart from the blue variety...

Oh, they are. Try doing on an MX keyboard what I did with my Topres in this video:

http://deskthority.net/videos-f63/topic11287.html

The stock NovaTouch's Achilles heel is the topping out racket. Much like linear MX! And the better built the keyboard, the louder it gets.

[tlt]

Corsair is probably paying some of the development cost to get the exclusivity.

[Findecanor]

At last! What took you so long, Cherry?

Direct link to detailed rendering.

However, article fail in that it claims that "click" is the sound on topping up or bottoming down. I suppose that flaw was in the press release from Corsair.

[Muirium]

Thanks for that! Here's the interesting bit:

Screen Shot 2015-08-05 at 7.57.23 pm.png (218.21 KiB) Viewed 10329 times

Looks like they are damping in the equivalent spot to good old Alps. It'll be a squeeze!

[amospalla]

Oh... if this is well done then I will have to test again a dampened red one, it will never end!!!

What mixed feelings this makes me have.

[chzel]

Didn't you know? It never ends.

[Redmaus]

I might just want to buy the switches alone.

I don't really care for the strafe...

[chzel]

Good luck with that..

[Muirium]

So, who's got some spare MX switches lying about? I want to hear how hard it is to make and install such tiny dampers. And I especially want to know if Cherry altered the slider shape to accommodate them.

Could be a chance these dampers are an addition to normal switches, rather than a full different slider. Anyone know?

[Khers]

From the render above I take it that it is indeed a new slider design based on the fact that the entire innards of the slider seem to be made out of the grey material that is supposedly the damper with a black shell.

[Muirium]

Oh right. I didn't realise that colour meant anything. My eyes are fixed on the little damper on the left, at the top of the slider rail. Topping out is the damping that I care about.

That said, a bit more mass in the slider (especially spongy, non-sound transmitting) ought to help on both strokes. But a damper right at the contact point between slider and top shell makes all the difference to me, on Alps and Topre.

[andrewjoy]

any sound samples yet ?

[Muirium]

Where's our Corsair rep!

[Redmaus]

Where's our Corsair rep!

Darn straight! The voice of DT needs to be heard! Although we really aren't the place for backlighting or RGB...

[Muirium]

Indeed. But damped switches… yeah, some of us are interested in that! This reminds me of when CM got into Topre switches, and suddenly got my attention too.

[davkol]

Meh. So, yeah, it's an innovation, but I'll rather keep my vintage blacks (or buy gaterons for the next build) and either do the Oobly's latex mod, or buy some Uniqey QMX Clips (should be available soon, right? right?!)… I prefer PCB mount anyway. KISS.

[Muirium]

A lot of us want to keep it so simple that we don't have to go through the bother of opening up dozens upon dozens of switches! It's tedious, tiny, time consuming work.

You'll get better results with Nixies, of course, so long as the damping works.

[davkol]

Lubrication? Yeah, I don't bother with that. Cherry-picked vintage blacks (or gaterons) are good enough out of the box, at least to me. I don't trust Cherry Corp. with new switches.

Simply removing switch covers isn't an issue though, esp. with a good switch-opening tool. Neither the latex mod, nor installing QMX Clips should be any more difficult than that.

[Jmneuv]

Nice.. who would have thought. Am a bit sceptical about the longevity of this microscopic rubber part.

[chzel]

The equivalent rubber parts in Alps are really durable, so I don't think it would be a problem, unless they make it too soft or something!

[Findecanor]

The rubber parts on Alps are much bigger than these and less complicated.

[Bramster]

Any of the CM reps around for more info???

Officially ofcousre I cannot comment on this. What is known now is that its Corsair exclusive for the comming 6 months and available in Black and Red versions, but thats all from the PRs ofcourse.. Anymore info I cannot say.

But perhaps you can specify what question you might have czhel?

[chzel]

Thank you for the comment!
I think you covered it pretty well!
I was curious about availability for the "general public", and being an MX Black fan, I'd like to know all the details! Are they smoother than regular blacks? How does the damping feel compared to Alps or Matias damped? Do the bumpers reduce travel or are the switch bodies different? Longevity?
Any answer you can give would be great!