Cherry MY - What's up with the hate?

[Icarium]

I have two Cherry MY boards here that I had never tried just bought for the caps. Now I just opened one to get to the cable and also took a look at the switch. I always thought these would be rubber dome but they are actually not and now that I've tried them they seem to feel like nice linear switches. A bit rough maybe.

So, why does everybody hate them so much?

[Mrinterface]

Because if you press them at an angle the friction increases to such an extent that it will get stuck.... Terrible.

Apparently there are mods for the MY switches that fixes that problem.

[off]

Having never used an MX linear board, I can't say how much better reds/blacks would be; but I can say I didn't like the MY board much, even preferring the rubber dome with sliders (and Alps compatible caps) I have here.
Try and remove the spring from one, see what you think about that. For me that's way too light, but interesting nonetheless. (remove the stem from the top with two small flat screwdrivers pushing in)

[kbdfr]

As a matter of fact, I love them, but only because they are the reason why I got interested in keyboards at all.

After years of typing on a G80-2100 (with 24 programmable keys), I was no longer able to store the strings of the programmed keys because the software was discontinued after Windows95.
So I bought the "newer version" of it, a G81-8308. And it felt horrible. Mushy, unprecise, somehow blurred - nothing a professional typist can really use on a daily basis.

I tried to find out why there was such a difference between those so similar keyboards - and got caught.
Thanks, Cherry MY!

[RC-1140]

What I don't like about MY is that they get stiffer the further you push the key down. They don't follow Hooke's Law due to the construction with the leaf spring, so they aren't linear, but feel rather exponential (of course they aren't, but they feel as if they were). Have a look at a force diagram and you will see.

Edit: Just wanted to look for a diagram over at the Cherry Corp Wiki at GH. Apparently this wiki has been nuked as well.

Edit2: Found it:

g81-kraft-weg-1.png (29.25 KiB) Viewed 7891 times

Doesn't look like much, but feels really awful imho.

[ripster]

Yeah, look at that 100g bottoming point!

Hooke's Law FTW!

iMav really should clean up the Geekhack Wikis. Not my fault that his $50 piece of crap WikiVault addon is so buggy it creates Ghost Wikis everytime you rename them.

[kbdfr]

Yeah, look at that 100g bottoming point!

Hooke's Law FTW!

That would have been enough.

iMav [...] Geekhack Wikis [...] WikiVault addon [...] buggy [...] Ghost Wikis [...]

[mSSM]

Yeah, look at that 100g bottoming point!

Hooke's Law FTW!

iMav really should clean up the Geekhack Wikis. Not my fault that his $50 piece of crap WikiVault addon is so buggy it creates Ghost Wikis everytime you rename them.

What the hell is a '100g bottoming point'? That seems to be a really really stupid habit in the US of describing forces (units of Newton) by units of mass - I really have only ever seen that on American TV.

Or are you saying that it requires less force to activate a key on moon than it does on earth?


EDIT: Even more so, Hooke's law states F = - x k. There isn't even a variable corresponding to mass there. At least in F = m a there would be (still, '100g bottoming point' is bullshit).

[RC-1140]

In most keyboard forums it's a bad habit to confuse grams and centinewton.

hey ripster, btw, speaking of wikis: how's your progress with learning MediaWiki? Would be great to have some good ripster guides here. The beginners guide over at GH used to be the the guide I gave to newbz, and the Dating Cherry Keyboards wiki is the only reason I head over to GH currently.

[ripster]

Please read this wiki for CN to gm discussion.

RipOmeter

I've been a bit busy having fun with IMGUR and Reddit to learn MediaWiki. My next plan is to try the WORD .docx to MediaWiki plugin. If it works it'll be a pieceOcake to convert 50 Wikis over.

If not fuggedaboutit. You guys could hire a free Summer Intern to do it.

[RC-1140]

Here we have it:



So with

f=ma.png (350 Bytes) Viewed 7820 times

and

a=g.png (805 Bytes) Viewed 7820 times

we get

result.png (1.31 KiB) Viewed 7820 times

So with the gravitational acceleration on earth the weight force of 1 gram nearly equals one centinewton.

btw. is there a LaTeX addon for this forum software? would be great! I hate formulas in plaintext.

[ripster]

Would have been easier to click my link.

Do programmers ALWAYS do things the hard way?

[Icarium]

Yes, it's called NIHS, "not invented here - syndrome". The urge to reinvent the wheel that many programmers for some reason have. Well, maybe not reinvent but at least build their own from scratch.

[RC-1140]

but in this case I only explained it to the others who are too lazy to F3/CTRL+F/"/" ripsters link.
Also I'm not a programmer (yet).

[ripster]

I only worry about CN vs gm when the measurements are from the Dutch. It's that being the only country below sea level thing.

[kint]

I straight out hate MY switches, no doubt about it.
The way they start firm and linear, until they suddenly bottom out makes me shudder even at the thought.
Wet newspaper, dead octopus, all true. It's like identifying POM keycaps, once felt you can unfeel even if you want to....
Gets better by removing the circular spring though.

[ripster]

One of those switches that feel worse than the force chart would indicate.

I haven't tried them but I hear Fujitsu Peerless is another one.

Fujitsu FKB4720-207.gif (2.69 KiB) Viewed 7797 times

[off]

The way they start firm and linear, until they suddenly bottom out makes me shudder even at the thought.
Gets better by removing the circular spring though.

I'm not sure I feel you on either of these statements..

[Trent]

One of those switches that feel worse than the force chart would indicate.

I haven't tried them but I hear Fujitsu Peerless is another one.

Fujitsu FKB4720-207.gif

Fujitsu peerless isn't the greatest. Since it is spring/rubber dome hybrid, I always assumed that they were very similar in feel to topre. I have not tried the topre switch though.

[Findecanor]

The spring's contribution in a Topre switch is negligible.

While a Topre switch is spring and rubber dome in parallel, a Peerless switch has the spring and rubber dome in "series", on top of one-another. One problem that I have heard about the Fujitsu Peerless switch is that the tactile point is different depending on how hard you press it ... Another problem with the keyboards is that the long switches are supposedly not stabilized properly, so you get friction on off-centre key presses.

A few reasons why people don't like Cherry MY are found in the force chart. One thing that has not been mentioned is that the initial resistance is too low. On a Cherry MX, you can rest your fingers on the keys without moving a key at all -- and you can't do that on a Cherry MY board.

[RiGS]

http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/why ... t1727.html

[squarebox]

ML is pure rubbish, as mrinterface has said, it sticks as long as you didnt hit the key perfectly center.

[Limmy]

ML is pure rubbish, as mrinterface has said, it sticks as long as you didnt hit the key perfectly center.

Do you mean MY? I don't think the friction is an issue for MY switches. If it were, the board must have been used a lot in dusty environment.

I bought some used G81-7000 boards for doubleshot caps, and it worked relatively fine in this state.

2012-06-05 04.45.01_resize.jpg (89.25 KiB) Viewed 7709 times

[robin13867]

Horses for courses - they're not designed for touch typists really, just for 'one finger plodders', and although we've made the G81-3000 for many, many years and it continues to sell quite well, it doesn't have the best of feels to it. Personally, I can't use it as it makes my fingers ache, but I'm a touch typist and it's not surprising.

However, for certain applications - mainly in POS - it's perfect. When the keyboard isn't in use all the time and the user is just jabbing at the keys (we've sold these to builders merchants) and the user can be heavy handed, then they're a really good choice. In applications like this, MX boards with their simple PCB can be a little too 'flimsy', whereas the large metal plate inside gives the MY products an advantage. Bear in mind that one of our largest UK projects over 10 years ago was for Alliance & Leicester Buiding Society who ordered around 3500 of these and still use them today. The returns rate for mechanical/electronic failure has been practically zero - they're only affected by fluid damage....

[Peter]

Well, there are 'MY' switches and then there there are 'Old plate-mounted MY'-switches

(No need for bolt-mods here, Cherry used metal-rivets !)


More pics here :
http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8 ... g81%203000

[Limmy]

I thought all MY switches are plate mounted. The recent ones(G81-7000 with windows key) on ebay were plate mounted.

[Findecanor]

All MY keyboards have the switches mounted on a metal plate, and the plate bolted to the case.
Each key module is only snapped to the plate, however, with a plastic snap.

[urbanus]

Horses for courses - they're not designed for touch typists really, just for 'one finger plodders', and although we've made the G81-3000 for many, many years and it continues to sell quite well, it doesn't have the best of feels to it. Personally, I can't use it as it makes my fingers ache, but I'm a touch typist and it's not surprising.

I use it for touch typing. FTSC is one of the better switches for typing IMHO, although it takes some time to get used to it.

You have to appreciate how it works, and what that means for touch typing. It's a steep switch: light in front of the actuation point, heavy after. So once you get used to it, so you're not bottoming out, you can touch type very quickly and with little resistance. And since the switch has low friction, the strength of the spring after actuation works in your benefit: it propels the switch back up quickly, allowing your fingers to fly across the board.

However FTSC is an unusual switch, and I can appreciate that most people find it hard to like. I guess it's a matter of preference and familiarity.

[urbanus]

Because if you press them at an angle the friction increases to such an extent that it will get stuck.... Terrible.

Yeah, uh, not so much. I mean you're right, but on my G81 boards it's an issue that generally affects only a few of the larger keys (like backspace) but not to a severe extent in my experience.

[kint]

Well, there are 'MY' switches and then there there are 'Old plate-mounted MY'-switches
...(No need for bolt-mods here, Cherry used metal-rivets !)
More pics here :
http://deskthority.net/photos-videos-f8 ... g81%203000

In comparison to the G81-81xx I recently took apart, whose MYs looked like limmys your MY switches seem to be mounted different. My MY switches were mounted with little pushpins in a 3 legs base - 2 of those on each switch.
Also I didn't find any metal rivets in my MY board.