deskthority

totally unscientific, but I just opened two boards to check.
10 random blue ones:
9 had a coil count of 12,5. One was 12,25.
10 random brown ones:
7 had a coil count of 13,0. One I did count as 13,25, two as 12,75.

both are used boards, the browns were vintage browns, whereas the blues were modern blues.
I wouldn't deny that the one longer brown one came from transplanting them onto the current PCB, whereas the blues are still on their OEM board...
So I'ld say on my boards there actually seems to be a difference in coil count between brown and blue, whether or not that may translate into the fingertips....
btw, you now owe me one brown spring...

During the first 1mm of travel, the blue switch is not affected by the metal leaf while the brown switch is affected by resistance caused by the metal leaf and the sliders. Disassemble a blue switch and see how it works during the first 1mm travel. You would notice the white jumper is held in place by the metal leaf but not touching the blue slider at the top until the blue slider travels down 1mm. This lack of resistance is why blues are lighter during the first travel. In contrast, in the brown switch the sliders are held in place by the metal leaf and the resistance is applied from the very beginning of the key travel.

You may also see it in the force chart of the blue switch. If you extend the linear line in the first 1mm, you would see that they pretty much coincide with the line at 3mm-4mm travel area. The same extension of the line in first 1mm in the browns goes over the linear line in the later part due to resistance during the first few mm of travel.

The slopes of linear part of the force charts are in line with my measurements, but the level of the force is a bit different from my measurements. I heard Cherry changed springs over time and the level difference I see could be an effect from the changes in the springs over time, but from my measurements I would conjecture the spring constants are designed to be different across the springs. My guess is that springs with greater spring constant is used in more tactile switches. See for example clears vs blacks.

Avoiding loosing argument is typical Ripster. He rarely admits his mistakes and he keeps saying same thing over and over again without new facts to back his story. And when he is loosing he usually changes topics, that is one of many reasons why he goes off topic I guess. I don't know. Probably Ripster likes to go off topic regardless.

Also, if Ripster wants be called a Dr. Ripster, he would first learn how to reference other people's work. That is very basic of becoming an academic.

kint wrote:totally unscientific, but I just opened two boards to check.
10 random blue ones:
9 had a coil count of 12,5. One was 12,25.
10 random brown ones:
7 had a coil count of 13,0. One I did count as 13,25, two as 12,75.

both are used boards, the browns were vintage browns, whereas the blues were modern blues.
I wouldn't deny that the one longer brown one came from transplanting them onto the current PCB, whereas the blues are still on their OEM board...
So I'ld say on my boards there actually seems to be a difference in coil count between brown and blue, whether or not that may translate into the fingertips....
btw, you now owe me one brown spring...

So there you go....

NORMAL manufacturing variance describes a LOT of things.

Soarer. You should put that in the GH wiki if iMav ever opens it up to anyone other than him.

And someone should link to this. My WikiMedia skillz need work.

Avoiding loosing argument is typical Ripster. He rarely admits his mistakes and he keeps saying same thing over and over again without new facts to back his story. And when he is loosing he usually changes topics, that is one of many reasons why he goes off topic I guess. I don't know. Probably Ripster likes to go off topic regardless.

Also, if Ripster wants be called a Dr. Ripster, he would first learn how to reference other people's work. That is very basic of becoming an academic.

Good science is never about personalities Limmy.

It's about measurements and replicable results.

You Soarer and Revenge should ask to join iMav's Wiki Team. Be sure to clean out all my jokes, meme pics, off color jokes, and any other personality I might have left in them.

ripster wrote:Soarer. You should put that in the GH wiki if iMav ever opens it up to anyone other than him.

I will!

Yet another replication that brown springs are NOT the same as blue springs!

10 blue springs at 12.5 turns +/- 0.25 turns
10 brown springs at 13.0 turns +/- 0.25 turns

Thanks kint!

Limmy wrote:During the first 1mm of travel, the blue switch is not affected by the metal leaf while the brown switch is affected by resistance caused by the metal leaf and the sliders. Disassemble a blue switch and see how it works during the first 1mm travel. You would notice the white jumper is held in place by the metal leaf but not touching the blue slider at the top until the blue slider travels down 1mm. This lack of resistance is why blues are lighter during the first travel. In contrast, in the brown switch the sliders are held in place by the metal leaf and the resistance is applied from the very beginning of the key travel.

Ah yes, that neatly explains why blues can feel lighter than browns.

The 'work' done to press one is less, even though the activation force is higher.

ripster wrote:...NORMAL manufacturing variance describes a LOT of things.....

I wouldn't call my measurements normal manufacturing tolerances. I can't claim this to be a blind test as I counted those different windings on your pic on site 1 when you posted it, but kept my mouth shut assuming unimportant tolerances.
Obviously there is an aggregation that there is a difference of ~ 1/2 of a winding on my boards.
As my random boards, with random springs counted, showed the exakt same behaviour like your pictured springs I'ld actually say that there is obviously a difference.
Now whether you can feel that difference is a whole other question. Stems and slider vs non-slider is likely to be of greater importance imo.

edit:

Soarer wrote:...
10 blue springs at 12.5 turns +/- 0.25 turns
10 brown springs at 13.0 turns +/- 0.25 turns
...Thanks kint!

yeah but with what frequency scale?

Soarer wrote:The 'work' done to press one is less, even though the activation force is higher.

The work done should be expressed as integration of the area under the force chart. From observing the force chart, I can say that pressing blue switch requires less work during the first 1mm of travel, but it is not so clear whether the blues overall require less work. It is because during 1mm-2mm travel, there is more work in the blue switches. I hope you understand what I am trying to convey here with my not-so-elegant English besides physical science is not my field.. It is good feeling though seeing my high school physics knowledge is finally put to use. See formula (2) in Work(physics) wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_%28physics%29 )

Yes, exactly that. I'm too lazy to actually work it out using the Cherry graphs (and we suspect them to be idealised anyway)! By eye, I think it's either roughly the same, or a little bit less for blues. Certainly it is different enough that feeling blues to be lighter is reasonable.

DEFINITELY Clicky Blue MX AND Clicky ALPs both feel less frictiony and IIRC have less of an integral under the force curve than their tactile Brown/linear Red MX and Black ALPs cousins.

MAYBE the springs are different. Or different batches?

Somebody check red coil counts next.

When IS iMav gonna form a Wiki Team to rewrite history? It's only one line and of no practical consequence, I'm just curious.

First he'll have to open them up again.

Any luck editing that GH wiki?

Lol.
http://deskthority.net/resources/image/3551

So this pic shows how what happens with the Blue the Mexican jumping bean white part snaps to the bottom leaving a fairly linear (hookes law FTW) friction free rest of the travel.



Pic added to wiki. Not my pic. You can tell because there is no watermark.

The DT wiki is open for editing. The GH wiki is closed because the Site Admin is paranoid.


http://deskthority.net/resources/image/3551

The sheep are also too scared to bring it up in the Feedback/Suggestions forum.

Lol.

ripster wrote:Always Soarer about Ripster.

nice.

kint wrote:*takes time to prove a point*

nice.

ripster wrote:good science is never about personalities limmy

Never figured you'd utter those words.
Valid point nonetheless, minus the @Limmy.

ripster wrote:DEFINITELY Blue MX & Clicky ALPs both feel less frictiony...than Brown/Red MX and Black Alps.

Well snap.
That makes me need 7bit's delivery even more. Hating frictiony feel, but ordered only the Reds in a quantity sufficient for a board.. sorta hoping I'll hate blues IRL, even though that was what I'd figured to be the most awesome easily available switch for a long time; got me some browns, they feel brown.

It's really not that bad, the friction of a red.



Typing on Cherry Reds is like typing on A Cloud Of Boobs.
<one of the few GH witticisms NOT coined by me>

There is a light silicon lube applied at the factory at the two "legs" of the Cherry MX pushing against the metal springy switch. NOT in the Slider Channels Limmy!

ripster wrote:It's really not that bad, the friction of a red.

The description of red slider does not coincide with what I observed. After about 2mm, the metal leaf no longer touches the slider. However, the way metal leaf is touching the red slider only helps the switch go down in contrast to other switches with bumps. You can imagine any bump that has angle less than 0 degree would add resistance even in an ideal setting where there is NO friction. The angle of the red slider leg is designed so that the when metal leaf is pushed against it it would help the slider to be pushed down.

ripster wrote: There is a light silicon lube applied at the factory at the two "legs" of the Cherry MX pushing against the metal springy switch. NOT in the Slider Channels Limmy!

I never said the slider channels are lubed out of factory. However, I have said the Topre sliders are lubed out of factory and you failed to see it was there until I pointed it out on a photo and walk you through the details.

As for the lube business, it certainly feels better with lubricant on the slider channels.(I used lubricants that felt slippery to touch such as Krytox GPL100 or GPL105) You can feel friction between the slider and the channels if you push large key without stabilizers (such as capslock or tab) on the edges. I even recorded the sound of the scratchiness. See here for the MP3 files ( http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/4009121 )

ripster wrote:It's really not that bad, the friction of a red.

Spoiler:

Pics don't mesh in my head. Red seems to fit (leaving aside Limmy's rebuttal), but Blue has got highlighted the part that is relatively friction-free, instead of the part during the press where you force the clicker through the leaf.

ripster wrote:Typing on Cherry Reds is like typing on A Cloud Of Boobs.
<one of the few GH witticisms NOT coined by me>

Spoiler:

Yeah, IIRC that was an actual boxprinted-line wasn't it?
I'm still very curious to what it'll feel like IRL.
These browns are absolutely different from what I'd thought, same with the buckling spring I now have (granted, M2).
Also, cloud of boobs doesn't really sound all that good in my ears w.r.t. typing. Reminds me of black MYs.
Possibly more like a cloud of silicone though.

Limmy wrote:The description of red slider does not coincide with what I observed. After about 2mm, the metal leaf no longer touches the slider. However, the way metal leaf is touching the red slider only helps the switch go down in contrast to other switches with bumps.


As for the lube business, it certainly feels better with lubricant on the slider channels.(I used lubricants that felt slippery to touch such as Krytox GPL100 or GPL105) You can feel friction between the slider and the channels if you push large key without stabilizers (such as capslock or tab) on the edges. I even recorded the sound of the scratchiness. See here for the MP3 files ( http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/4009121 )

Forgot to respond to you;
So O vs X, which means which? X meaning simply 'with' and O 'without'?
Hm, it seems it is logical for you to use X for 'without' and O for 'with' apparently... (after listening to the samples)
Care to elaborate?
For me it is more logical the other way around, seeing how on for instance a form you could have empty boxes 'O's, and checked boxes 'X's after crossing the boxes.
Also a tip, personally I quite dislike empty ID3-tags, yours have only the year (2012, ok) and the genre (blues, mkay) filled in; much prefer no tags at all if they're nonsense anyhow (since without tags my player shows me the filenames, and with tags, even when empty, it'll show that info).

Another thing, the slow tab before lube file, is that actually the way it sounded and did you tap it the same way with the same rhythm&force as the lubed one? It sounds like it clipped during encoding or got smacked hard (at 3seconds).
Re: stickers; these I'm hearing are the infamous red stickers I take it (or some other derivative, like a diy one)?

Yeah, it's pretty obvious that there's no friction from the leaf after the contact has been made, for any MX type.

There could be a slight difference in friction between blues and the the non-clicky types in the bottom half of the travel, but I suspect it's negligible.

But there IS friction after the activation point!

See pics above.

I uploaded Cherry Corp definitions to the wiki..

Brb

Lulz...how do you FIND pictures you've uploaded to the wiki here?

Here you go: Deskthority Wiki: Special pages: Files contributed by Stevie Wonder.

EDIT: Don't go uploading random pics to the wiki, otherwise we have all these seeminly unused pictures around.

ripster wrote:But there IS friction after the activation point!

I didn't say there wasn't some friction, just that the difference between blues and non-clicky is probably negligible!

There is certainly none from the leaf - it is resting on the contact, NOT the slider.

JBert wrote:Here you go: Deskthority Wiki: Special pages: Files contributed by Stevie Wonder.

EDIT: Don't go uploading random pics to the wiki, otherwise we have all these seeminly unused pictures around.

Thanks although I was hoping to be able to do searches and use tags like a Photo Manager Usually can.


And they have been used, just not in the wikis yet.

More efficient to load once a pic, use many times.

Why, is there a limit?

ripster wrote:It's really not that bad, the friction of a red.

I like that graphic!

The rub-rub is the reason why I use vintage black stems along with red springs.

BTW:
What kind of lens did you use for this:

It's not a good idea to use the wiki as an general image server. The wiki is a separate entity. People might erase images not linked to in articles, as an act of maintenance. Trash collection. And they would be right. People might also want to download the wiki and they don't want unused images. If you don't plan to use an image in the wiki, I wouldn't upload it there.

Yes, right!

Cut the Ripster thing off from the bottom and add it to the Cherry MX Red article!

Since ripster likes pictures...

Np. I try to hot link most images.

The rest of the Stevie pics ARE for the wikis once I get it figured out. I'll delete the Cloud of Boobs one! Sounds like the wikis here have a more "moderate" tone.

Did anybodey successfully remove the rub-rub feature of the reds and other modern Cherry switches (without the need to type the switches in)?