Help me choose! BOX Black or Navy?

[abrahamstechnology]

Hello!
I recently got another Wyse WY-60 and converted it with an external Soarers converter I made, instead of refitting it with other switches I decided to try out the Vintage Blacks in it, at first they felt pretty weird, since I only used clicky switches before, but now I am beginning to like them. (I am typing this message with them). However, they bind sometimes because they are dirty (the whole board looked like it was stored outside and covered with dirt) So, I think it is time for a refit. I want to go with BOX switches since they have been fixed and I like their stability. So, should I go with the clicky Navies or linear Blacks?

[chuckdee]

Neither. See other-news-f47/kailh-box-switches-crack ... 19543.html and there's no guarantee that they're fixed, as they never ascribed to the fact that there was a problem. I think it's folly to put box switches on anything that you care about right now. Have someone else be the guinea pig. Or become someone else's...

[samuelcable]

I'd recommend cleaning the blacks in your Wyse with a cleaner if possible as they will give you a better experience than box blacks. As for box navy's I've never tried since I don't like clickies and they probably sound bad in a Wyse

[Blaise170]

I'd recommend cleaning the blacks in your Wyse with a cleaner if possible as they will give you a better experience than box blacks. As for box navy's I've never tried since I don't like clickies and they probably sound bad in a Wyse

They are actually quite cool, Chyros put navy switches in one of his WYSE boards.

[abrahamstechnology]

Neither. See other-news-f47/kailh-box-switches-crack ... 19543.html and there's no guarantee that they're fixed, as they never ascribed to the fact that there was a problem. I think it's folly to put box switches on anything that you care about right now. Have someone else be the guinea pig. Or become someone else's...

I already have some older (I presume) BOX Navies, they don't have the "nubs" on the stems and various keycaps are just as tight on them as my Bsuns and Gaterons. Since the new switches once again removed the "nubs", I believe they are as they were before. If they aren't, I have a few keycaps to spare.

[abrahamstechnology]

I'd recommend cleaning the blacks in your Wyse with a cleaner if possible as they will give you a better experience than box blacks. As for box navy's I've never tried since I don't like clickies and they probably sound bad in a Wyse

I have no doubt they will, they still feel better than regular Blacks, even when dirty.

But I really don't want to get into another switch cleaning project just yet,maybe eventually, but I'd prefer to completely refit the Wyse for now. I may reuse the vintage blacks in another board, or sell them.

And as for Navies in a Wyse, they do sound very good. They are very well built boards.

[TooMuchMech]

Honestly really liking Box Blacks right now, just now getting into linears. Reds were too easy to bottom out and the Heavy Yellows were just a bit too much, didn't think the black would make a difference but it has. I love love love navies too, but they are a lot to push through if you're typing a lot. Also NovelKeys has started to get the retooled Box mount switches back in stock, He's got Royals, Jades, Navys, and the Heavy Boxes, so if you had keycap concerns go for those. Mike measured the stems and they check out, and given his completely praiseworthy approach to Kailhs monstrous screwjob, I'm inclined to trust him.

[Elrick]

But I really don't want to get into another switch cleaning project just yet,maybe eventually, but I'd prefer to completely refit the Wyse for now.

Totally understandable. Sometime's with all cherry's it's far easier to remove the offending switches and replace them than to waste time cleaning each degraded switch.

They're not like Alps which are designed to be taken apart and cleaned successfully compared to the misery of Cherry switch manipulation.

And as for Navies in a Wyse, they do sound very good. They are very well built boards.

YES, the Navy's simply rule in the Cherry world at this moment in time .

[green-squid]

I would not trust their quality control long term even if they fix the stem issue. I think Wodan put it best keyboards-f2/do-box-switches-stretch-pb ... 09-60.html
Go with tried and true switches I'd say, like what samuelcable suggested.

[Muirium]

Now, when you say tried and true, what about non Cherry switches in general. Like silent Gaterons?

[Blaise170]

Early Gaterons were prone to failure. A lot of the first generation Varmilo boards (like the one at home and not at my desk) that came with Gaterons now have a bunch of dead switches and Varmilo refuses to do warranty repair on any Gateron switch boards of theirs.

[Khers]

I would not trust their quality control long term even if they fix the stem issue. I think Wodan put it best keyboards-f2/do-box-switches-stretch-pb ... 09-60.html
Go with tried and true switches I'd say, like what samuelcable suggested.

I agree with Wodan on this. Until long term reliability has been proven, I'd rather stay away from non-Cherry switches. The fact that I don't care one bit for tactile MX switches of course makes this a lot easier for me as Cherry made the best[sup]†[/sup] linear MX switch in the eighties and early nineties.

Hence, it should come as no surprise that my recommendation for the OP is to clean those vintage blacks and use them. Or get some retooled mx blacks in their place if you can't be bothered with cleaning.

[sup]†[/sup] Warning! Personal opinion. If you agree, nice. If you don't that's ok too.

E: Why doesn't superscript work, IIRC it did in the past.

[Quartz64]

About 6 month ago I've built Nyquist split ortho with Box Blacks. Used it for about 1 month before selling it — the reason was not the switches, but full ortho layout, I've decided that I need something more Ergodox-like (Iris, Zen, etc.). As for the Box Blacks — I was absolutely in love with them. Haven't used any linears before and was very sceptical about them (tried Cherry MX Red — scratchy and too light), but was amazed by Box Black's smoothness and ideal (for me) weight. Can't say anything about cracked stems, keycaps were a cheap DSA blanks, the new owner of the keyboard haven't faced any problems.
Yesterday I was choosing the switches for my new project. Noticed that there are New Box Black switches listed on Kbdfans website, but there are not so expensive Cherry MX Blacks, and I've heard that they became just good as vintage Blacks after retooling. They cost more ($35 vs $27 for 90 pcs), but I tend to choose Cherry for "premium" project (rebuilding/modding Kinesis Advantage) and Kailh for "cheap" projects (few handwired Atreus boards).

[chuckdee]

Early Gaterons were prone to failure. A lot of the first generation Varmilo boards (like the one at home and not at my desk) that came with Gaterons now have a bunch of dead switches and Varmilo refuses to do warranty repair on any Gateron switch boards of theirs.

I haven't had any problems, and I pretty much switched to Gats for most things a year ago, when MX Browns were hard to come by. I keep a couple of bags around to supply any board that I happen to build, and buy a bag on MD whenever I'm down to my last. I've just been looking on with interest as Kailh's stocks rose. Especially as I tried Speed Copper, and they were pretty good. But now...

[Blaise170]

Gaterons are in most cases pretty good, but I'm talking several years ago when they were first picked up by Varmilo. These switches shouldn't be dying at rates of almost 50% after only 2-3 years. Of course, Gateron could have sent Varmilo a bad batch but I think it says something about their reliability when Varmilo will repair anything of theirs with Cherry switches but not Gaterons.

[TooMuchMech]

Time for a disjointed, uneven, overlong and misinformed rant, I think.

This concern about Kailh's quality control is completely valid, but a tad overblown in my mind. Kailh is a Chinese company with a legacy of affordable production, often at the cost of QC, sometimes frankly "Q." However, it really comes down to a value prospect: QC, innovation, and price. Currently I'd say Gateron is a pretty decent mix of all three, Cherry now has QC but let's face it those molds were getting pretty sandy for a while and they were ready to ride them into the ground, and Kailh is doing some cool new stuff and they are cheap as hell.

Each one of us have to make the decision...do we want to wait on Cherry to innovate, realistically just making incremental changes to their decades old designs, or do some of us want to try something different? Let's be honest, a huge reason Cherry is lauded so much in MX switches is because they managed to stay afloat and outlive everyone (many would say by cutting a LOT of corners in the 90s/early 2000s), and they've been doing it for the longest. Buckling Springs and ALPS went the way of the dodo due to production costs, not because the Cherry MX line was incredible, and Matias seems frankly marketing incompetent with their discrete switches.

At one point, all Kailh did was make the worst 4 Color MX clones in the industry. Now, at the very least, they are getting VERY WEIRD and different with the amount and type of switch choices, and that counts a lot for someone like myself who cares dick all about any company's storied history if it comes at the expense of an interesting line of current products (Cherry, in my mind). I have buckling springs, and a bunch of Kailh, Gateron, and Outemu in my boards because I see no reason to give Cherry money for the same old thing they've always made. The two Cherry boards I purchased were sold off because the Outemu/Kailh/Gateron boards I had were more interesting to me and were pulled out more often.

Gateron, Kailh, even Outemu's goofy dustproof "CIY" line, have resulted in some DIFFERENT things that just aren't available with Cherry. If you're willing to take a risk, you're going to get burned from time to time, that's life in a small capitalist market. I personally am not willing to be bored to tears with my enthusiast typing experience because I'm concerned Kailh is focused on spitting out switches cheaply: that's what they've always done, it's a known quantity. They clearly took the easy way out, and aren't doing anything to help out those who bought the borked Box line, but any enthusiast with the right tools and motivation can figure out whether it's been fixed or not pretty quickly, and there are a couple of ways to address the old product. The extra twenty to fifty cents a switch you saved has to go somewhere.

I'm not going to wait "just to be sure" about something as silly as what keyboard switch I want to type on all day while I work and play. This isn't life or death, it's a value prospect. If I want different now, I'm taking the risk that Kailh did something else to the Box switch that none of us even know about, because I'm an adult and this isn't the end of the world. I'll type for a couple of years on what I've got now, instead of inserting senseless worry into a switch purchase, and in a matter of weeks all the retools will start coming back into stock so we can carry our pitchforks to another castle regardless.

Some of us don't want to find, pay for, disassemble, and customize switches all day, but we want something very different from Cherry's offerings. It means you're going to get crapped on from time to time by companies across an ocean or two, but that comes with the territory if you're doing something enthusiast and often getting it cheaper. It's up to each one of us to decide if that value prospect makes sense, and that's why all these competitors are still kicking: clearly there is an entire demographic that thinks another way is just as good or better, and I think it's a little silly to give Cherry credit because someone else screwed something up. I'll give them some credit when they make a tactile switch that doesn't feel like a linear swallowed a pinprick, or a clicky switch that doesn't sound like a scraping plastic mess.

[Muirium]

Satisfying rant. Trouble is, these fucked up switches fuck up costly caps, worth far more than they are. We’re talking about collateral damage far beyond the mere disappointment of a cheap switch.

Not to rain on your ranty parade, I just happen to disagree with the premise that you get what you pay for. Nope. In this case, you paid with your cherished keysets!

[Blaise170]

I actually think yellow Kailhs were a pretty decent switch, the first of the modern clones (I'm not counting vintage clones like Aristotle) to reach the international market. Kaihua isn't stupid, they've been producing electrical components for over 25 years in many different industries. Those joysticks on your Xbox controller? There's a chance those were made by Kaihua. Generic Chinese gaming mouse? Could be Kailh switches. The headphone jack in your laptop? Also might be manufactured by Kaihua.

People never wanted to give Kaihua a chance because many held near and dear to their prized Cherry switches. Then once the other started hitting the market - Gateron, OTM/Outemu, Matias/Gaote, etc. - people started going nuts over them. So Kaihua was kind of the scapegoat of clone hate for years. Then once they actually tried innovating people went nuts again - then found out that the tolerances were off.

Frankly, I'm not sure that this was an "accident" or even the result of bad quality control. I think it's more likely that Kailh saw an opportunity to redesign the switches and made the stems wider to keep keycaps from falling off (some vintage switches grip the keycaps so hard that you end up pulling the stem out with it (i.e. Alps, NEC oval, etc.). While QC probably did test these thousands or millions of times, they probably used generic Chinese keycaps (read: cheap) which do not suffer the stress that higher end keys do like GMK or SP.

[TooMuchMech]

Satisfying rant. Trouble is, these fucked up switches fuck up costly caps, worth far more than they are. We’re talking about collateral damage far beyond the mere disappointment of a cheap switch.

Not to rain on your ranty parade, I just happen to disagree with the premise that you get what you pay for. Nope. In this case, you paid with your cherished keysets!

Haha "ranty parade" is my favorite now. I can see why people are super pissed, I have a set of SA Cyans that I will never take off now.

[chuckdee]

Satisfying rant. Trouble is, these fucked up switches fuck up costly caps, worth far more than they are. We’re talking about collateral damage far beyond the mere disappointment of a cheap switch.

Not to rain on your ranty parade, I just happen to disagree with the premise that you get what you pay for. Nope. In this case, you paid with your cherished keysets!

Totally agree. They might just be pieces of plastic, but I paid very good money for some of these sets. I didn't invest that much money to have them ruined by someone's bad choice, and it is dismissed as par for the course. It was a deliberate choice to widen the stems, called for by a partner of Kailh. I get that part. But to use them for all consumer switches? That was a deliberate choice also, and a very rash one that they can't even admit fault over. I'm just glad I never got around to trying them...

[TheInverseKey]

Pale blue box switches are the just the right weight and using a box navy for just the space bar is really nice. If you get 125g spring for the space bar it makes thonk a lot but the tactility is still there. Personally I love having a heavy space bar and this was my go to build.