deskthority

I just bought a KX in the states and disassembled it a few days ago. The switches are branded Rapoo (in their characteristic font) rather than Kailh, and the housing more closely resembles Cherry MX / Gateron than Kailh.

Does anyone know who is the current switch OEM for Rapoo? Also, unless I'm (not) seeing things, they're using pinless (plate?) switches on a PCB-only board...

I think Rapoo is in a sense a very opportunistic company/brand (like Noppoo) changing their description of the switches they use often and maybe as often as the market prices change.

Very early on Rapoo's switches in KX were marked "PG1511" which is Kailh; then sometime later they were clearly marked as "Kailh" ... so it doesn't surprise me that now they are labeled "Rapoo".

I posted some pics here: http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/rap ... kx#p219107

zts wrote: I think Rapoo is in a sense a very opportunistic company/brand (like Noppoo) changing their description of the switches they use often and maybe as often as the market prices change.

Very early on Rapoo's switches in KX were marked "PG1511" which is Kailh; then sometime later they were clearly marked as "Kailh" ... so it doesn't surprise me that now they are labeled "Rapoo".

I posted some pics here: http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/rap ... kx#p219107

Oh yeah, I know. But these switch housings look nothing like Kailh switches. In fact, they look more Cherry MX than Gaterons...

REVENGE wrote:

zts wrote: I think Rapoo is in a sense a very opportunistic company/brand (like Noppoo) changing their description of the switches they use often and maybe as often as the market prices change.

Very early on Rapoo's switches in KX were marked "PG1511" which is Kailh; then sometime later they were clearly marked as "Kailh" ... so it doesn't surprise me that now they are labeled "Rapoo".

I posted some pics here: http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/rap ... kx#p219107

Oh yeah, I know. But these switch housings look nothing like Kailh switches. In fact, they look more Cherry MX than Gaterons...

It would be nice to see some pics. And maybe compared them to switches labeled "Noppoo" if you have an opportunity (since Noppoo's last year's Kailhs are suddenly labeled "Noppoo"). Maybe some companies just gave up on re-cloning Kailh clones and went straight to cloning MX (Noppoo's attempt @ Topre clone comes to mind).

Pardon the shitty image quality, I don't have a good macro setup at the moment. Here's what I have:






Note that the crosspoint is gold plated and in the same orientation as Cherry MX

















If there's an obvious answer, please shout it out! I haven't been keeping up with the latest batches of MX clones / imitations.

Your "shitty" macros are better than anything I can do! My camera's so old (10 years now) that I have to aim for aesthetic effect instead of detail. Everything gets lost in the ISO fog.

Very nice photos. You are right -- if "Rapoo" is not on these switches I'd think it's Cherry MX. Is it possible to strip "Cherry MX" branding and re-brand as "Rapoo" or they were not branded to begin with and it's easy to brand them?

branded Cherry: on the same page it shows the yellow that's not branded: original pics from: http://deskthority.net/photos-f62/yab84 ... t2149.html

Interestingly, in March of this year they were advertising/describing their switches as "Original Factory MX Yellow Switches for Laptops Desktops PC" and also using words like "homemade".

Any switch experts care to chime in on this?

More evidence that this is not a fluke:


-From the V500s Massdrop that launched in June.

Oh, here's a nice media gallery that popped up 3 days ago:
http://www.pcpop.com/doc/1/1114/1114355.shtml