deskthority

So I bought an inexpensive ultrasonic cleaner for my (currently loose) Blue Alps switches. I'd previously dismissed the idea as I thought ultrasonic cleaners were some heavy duty industrial tools that cost thousands of dollars, until I randomly did an Ebay search and noticed there are quite a few cheaper options available.

Anyway, so I tested it out on a couple of the Blue Alps, as well as some of the White Alps from my old Focus keyboard that's been sitting around my house since childhood.

For the Blue Alps, I cleaned: the top housing, bottom housing, click leaf, and spring. I left out the contact leaf as I assumed it would take ages for the water to dry out of the various crevices within it, and I left out the slider as, from what I hear, Blue Alps have some dry lubricant applied to the sliders (I have no idea if it's still there or not), and cleaning them would probably remove it (if it was there).

For the White Alps, I cleaned the top housing, click leaf, and slider. I only blew out the dust from the bottom housing/contact leaf since the switches are obviously already soldered in.

The Blue Alps after cleaning, feel a little bit smoother but still with noticeable scratchiness. The White Alps feel exactly the same after cleaning - i.e. just as horrible and stiff as before. What am I doing wrong?

Here's an intro guide which Ohaimark recently posted, but I am sure others here can comment on Alps reconditioning. I know there are other guides so I would recommend searching around.

workshop-f7/introductory-guide-to-ultra ... 17208.html

I don't think it's anything you're doing wrong - it's a testament to how stubborn alps switches are, haha. How is the condition of the top housing of the white alps after cleaning them? Do the rails look pretty clean? It's possible that dust may have damaged the top housings beyond what ultrasonic cleaning can fix.

JP! has a good resource as well!

That's handy, that was just posted yesterday. Talk about good timing.

The top housings look clean enough to me. Honestly the switches aren't even super dusty, maybe White Alps always feels like this? I wouldn't know since I've never used a clean brand new White Alps board recently. (I say recently because if I've used one years ago I wouldn't remember what they were like)

It *is* (or should be) only the top housing and slider that affects the switch smoothness though, isn't it?

M4dn3ss wrote: That's handy, that was just posted yesterday. Talk about good timing.

The top housings look clean enough to me. Honestly the switches aren't even super dusty, maybe White Alps always feels like this? I wouldn't know since I've never used a clean brand new White Alps board recently. (I say recently because if I've used one years ago I wouldn't remember what they were like)

It *is* (or should be) only the top housing and slider that affects the switch smoothness though, isn't it?

I'd imagine spring condition is part of the equation as well. Rusty springs probably make keyfeel awful, hahaha. I can tell you, though, that white alps can feel exceptionally well. I had a focus with basically unused white alps that were among the nicest switches I've ever used!

//gainsborough wrote:

M4dn3ss wrote: That's handy, that was just posted yesterday. Talk about good timing.

The top housings look clean enough to me. Honestly the switches aren't even super dusty, maybe White Alps always feels like this? I wouldn't know since I've never used a clean brand new White Alps board recently. (I say recently because if I've used one years ago I wouldn't remember what they were like)

It *is* (or should be) only the top housing and slider that affects the switch smoothness though, isn't it?

I'd imagine spring condition is part of the equation as well. Rusty springs probably make keyfeel awful, hahaha. I can tell you, though, that white alps can feel exceptionally well. I had a focus with basically unused white alps that were among the nicest switches I've ever used!

True, but the springs seem perfectly fine to me.
Anyway, I tried a blind (and deaf) test of the one "perfect" clean blue Alps switch I have vs an ultrasonically cleaned one and they felt very similar in feel. The cleaned one has a scratchy sound when placed near my ear.

Maybe it's just a placebo effect that I said it felt scratchy even after cleaning? (Scratchy sound -> scratchy feel?)

I think my ultrasonic cleaner is crap, after cleaning I looked inside the top housings with a torch and noticed they still have varying levels of gunk caked on to the slider rails that I just can't seem to get rid of.

Any tips on removing that stubborn grime?

Alternatively, I had an idea - if I were to buy brand new and unused white Alps or similar, could I just swap the clean top housing into the blue Alps? Would they feel the same? Probably close enough anyway