MX Ghetto Greens (sort of) or real MX Greens ?

[Kurozumi]

Hi there, a few questions about Greens came into my mind, since i got a new Keyboard which is on MX Blues, and they feel very smooth/good, but stupidly light. It's a Leopold FC660M.

My old board is a Filco Majestouch 1 TKL which i used since late 2009. In early 2012 i desoldered all switches and changed them to Cherry MX Greens (real greens). That configuration was always nice for myself, but rarely i think that Greens are a tiny tad to heavy.

Since the new board i read through alot of threads on different forums that got me into the dilemma, of course there are ghetto greens, there are custom springs, there are retooled switches and so on.


My first question would be, are the internals exactly the same to a blue switch, besides the color and the spring? 90% of the people say yes, but some say ghetto greens do not feel exactly the same as real greens.

Second question would be, is there a date of switch production, since they are retooled? The Green switches i could get for the keyboard would be made in Early to Mid 2017. I don't know they will be retooled or not.
I examined the blues on my board, since they are damn smooth and nice feeling, and they look like the photos of the retooled versions. The blues of the 2009 Filco and the greens i used for 6 years now do feel quite scratchier.

Third question is about springs, since i quite like the switches on the board. I thought about getting some springs for the blues, desolder them and turn them into sort of ghetto greens.
Besides i don't know if ghetto greens equal real greens for feeling, i have never ever had a spring swap in any board.
I thought of something like 78g or 72g sprit springs, since they should be lighter as the 80g (if i recall correctly) Springs of Greens/Blacks.
How are these springs (linear versions) behaving? Lets say at a similar spring weight as stock do they bottom out lighter or heavier?

That's pretty much, what got my head spinning, since i really liked Greens the most (my Benchmark would still be my 1988 Model M) and i'm looking to get the best feeling out of it. Kinda looking for nice feeling green board, that's not scratchy and maybe a click lighter than the stock greens.
But i'm not 100% sure about lighter spring weight, since my Greens on the Filcos are a bit inconsistent, some keys feel lighter (not the most used ones), some feel a bit heavier and the lighter feeling ones are fine for myself.

Would be nice, if anybody can give some input, thanks!

[Muirium]

As far as I’m aware, there’s no secret sauce in real MX greens. They are simply a different spring weight to blues. The pair are the clicky analog to MX black and red for linears. So going “ghetto” is no such thing, and lets you choose your own spring weight.

Now, I’m not exactly the most MX minded of people here so my knowledge may well be questionable! But I’d say open up those blues and throw in your ideal springs. You know the work involved already.

[abrahamstechnology]

I think a good idea would be to also swap in a Gateron stem, then you'd get the advantage of the smoother stem with the stability of the Cherry housings.

[Kurozumi]

Thanks for the fast answers, then it seems the blues can stay, and i can go mad with springs .
Does anybody know how the springs rates match the cherry ones? F.e. if we take the sprit springs, is 78g like a cherry green (80g) ? Or are the rates kinda funky?

@abrahamstechnology: I never had anything from Gateron, are they still smoother than the retooled cherry ones? Guess i have to update my knowledge about mechanical keyboard tech....

[Hypersphere]

As you might know, HaaTa has made some excellent force-displacement measurements and published the curves.

Here are his plots for mx blue and green:

Spoiler:

mxblue.png (83.37 KiB) Viewed 4705 times

Cherry mx Blue

Spoiler:

mxgreen.png (87.7 KiB) Viewed 4705 times

Cherry mx Green
As you can see, the slope of the green curve after the tactile and actuation events is steeper than that of the blue curve. This is similar to what is seen with Cherry mx Brown vs mx Clear.

Because my typing style is to bottom out on every keystroke, I find greens and clears tiring for long typing sessions, but I find browns and blues too light.

As Mu has often said, Cherry mx was originally purely linear (mx Black) and linear is what Cherry does best. In the linear mx realm, I have found Gateron Yellow to be the sweet spot. I've found Gaterons to be smoother than Cherry (except for vintage Cherry mx Black), and the Yellow weight is intermediate between that of Reds and Blacks.

Spring weights can be tricky, because Cherry mx switch weights are based on actuation force, but some springs are classified according to bottom-out force.

Good luck finding your ideal spring weight. Let us know how your project turns out.

[abrahamstechnology]

Thanks for the fast answers, then it seems the blues can stay, and i can go mad with springs .
Does anybody know how the springs rates match the cherry ones? F.e. if we take the sprit springs, is 78g like a cherry green (80g) ? Or are the rates kinda funky?

@abrahamstechnology: I never had anything from Gateron, are they still smoother than the retooled cherry ones? Guess i have to update my knowledge about mechanical keyboard tech....

I don't know. As far as I know the only Cherry switches that were retooled recently were the linear ones. But Gateron (and Bsun) switches are much smoother than their Cherry counterparts. Plus they are very cheap.

[Kurozumi]

Thanks again for the answers, those curves are nice, never seen them before,but the official cherry ones. Since you got me really nice information for blues and greens etc. i will elaborate why i favored greens...

I bottom out always, too, but for me it's kinda the opposite. On long typing and gaming runs blues are very tiring, it kinda hurts a bit after a while. Plus for myself they kinda feel very "bumpy/clunky" at the tactile point.
On browns/reds, i just can't use these it just plain hurts, i guess bottom out way harder than most people, or i'm just spoiled after using the model m for 12 years in a row.
Greens and Blacks feel pretty normal (Filco in the office has got blacks) and i agree, linear is what the mx-switches are kinda meant to be, and the blacks feel very good, but they are kinda boring to me. They just are not satisfying, and it's not the click that gets me, but the later tactile point (compared to brown/clear).

I kinda always came back to black/green/clear territory, on clears i wished they had more force at the start, but less at the end, maybe i should try panda-clears some time??!?...
On greens the force is almost spot on, i "almost bottom out", it's most of the time just a tiny tad before all down. Usually that's fine, but since they try to emulate the collapsing of Buckling springs that always felt weird. I compensated by using 85A O-rings to get the bottom out a tiny bit earlier/shorten the range and it quite did the trick.

This is summed up, why i always came back to my old modded filco with the greens.
Now with the new Leopold, i have the layout, the color (skydolch) and the keycaps i always wanted, it's kinda perfect (besides the switches).
The blues never felt that good in any other board i had, but like you figured i guess they aren't exactly my cup of tea.
Usually i would buy a bag of greens and call it a day, but since the board is so close what i always wanted, perfectionism got me. And since i can't fit buckling springs in there, what would i do to get greens nicer (well for me).
Then i searched forums, and that led to the Topic/post here .

I guess it's either greens, slightly lighter ghetto greens or something crazy that comes into my mind (panda clears f.e.)...

[Hypersphere]

@Kurozumi: The force-displacement curve for mx clear has an extremely steep slope after the tactile bump and actuation events. This produces a strong cushion that feels as if you were trying to push a piston in a tight-fitting cylinder, compressing the air.

I much prefer a crisp tactile event that subsequently releases the tension. Switches that come close to this characteristic include IBM beam spring, IBM Model F capacitive buckling spring, IBM Model M membrane buckling spring, Alps SCKM amber, blue, and white, and Matias Click and Tactile.

I also like Topre switches for their smoothness, early tactile event, and the distinctive "thock" sound on bottoming out.

As for keyboards, I have had a Filco Majestouch TKL with Cherry mx blue, Leopold FC660M with Cherry mx brown, and Leopold FC660C with Topre 45g. These were solid boards, but typing on mx blues was like smashing Rice Crispies cereal with my fingers and mx browns felt like reds with grit in the works. The Leopold with Topres was by far my favorite of this group, but I sold the FC660C and got a HHKB Pro 2, which is still my most frequently used keyboard.

I'm typing this post with a KBP V60R with Cherry mx greens. The main things I like about this board are the 60% form factor and the fact that it is a Type R, which means completely programmable. I've programmed it to a HHKB-like layout. My least favorite items on this board were the ABS keycaps (subsequently replaced with Ducky dye-sublimated PBT) and the Cherry mx switches. However, the mx greens are an improvement over mx blues, but still far removed from buckling springs or tactile/clicky Alps or Matias.

If you don't achieve keyboard bliss by swapping out the springs in your Filco, have you thought of selling it and going with a board with more interesting switches?

[Elrick]

@Kurozumi:
If you don't achieve keyboard bliss by swapping out the springs in your Filco, have you thought of selling it and going with a board with more interesting switches?

Agreed.

Far better to be an explorer, going into unknown realms;

To explore Strange Keyboards and New Switches to Boldly Go where you have never been before .

[Muirium]

Don’t listen to them. Madness that way lies. Never the keyboard in your hands. Forever just what could be. The dream that sours every reality.

Besides, Elrick won’t rest until you’ve devoted your soul to a monstrous board that’s at least as heavy as you are, and with a similar imbalance in net worth.

[Hypersphere]

C'mon, Mu, you know you want to recommend the HHKB!

[Muirium]

Nah. 60% chooses you. And Topre doesn’t click. It may be my favourite board, but it’s as relevant here as a steel hulled battleship.

[Kurozumi]

@Kurozumi:
If you don't achieve keyboard bliss by swapping out the springs in your Filco, have you thought of selling it and going with a board with more interesting switches?

Agreed.

Far better to be an explorer, going into unknown realms;

To explore Strange Keyboards and New Switches to Boldly Go where you have never been before .

I quite like my black board, at work our boards have to be silent, so no clicky awesomeness, they were pretty mad at me, when i had my IBM at work... as for non clicky cherries, blacks are my favorite yet.

I ordered two MX Greens, two blacks, and two clears. Then i can one-button-testdrive real Greens, Ghetto greens, Clears, Panda-Clears, Blacks and Ghost Blacks side by side . And of course i can order some springs to test in these switches.

As far as Boldly go where you never have been before, well i'm not on warp speed right now, but thrusters are engaged

Nah. 60% chooses you. And Topre doesn’t click. It may be my favourite board, but it’s as relevant here as a steel hulled battleship.

As long as it has arrow keys and insert and delete (with some spacing to Backspace and Backslash), i'm in, but i guess it's more like 65% chose me.

Don’t listen to them. Madness that way lies. Never the keyboard in your hands. Forever just what could be. The dream that sours every reality.

Besides, Elrick won’t rest until you’ve devoted your soul to a monstrous board that’s at least as heavy as you are, and with a similar imbalance in net worth.

As for heaviness, the Filco with the greens is not as paperweight as it used to be since it has an aluminum case.
And for monstrous size, nothing against it, but i kinda like the smaller size of the tkls and smaller. You get a more natural hand distance, if you use mouse and keyboard together, and well, since im a lefty, the numpad always was totally useless anyways...

@Kurozumi:
[...]
I much prefer a crisp tactile event that subsequently releases the tension. Switches that come close to this characteristic include IBM beam spring, IBM Model F capacitive buckling spring, IBM Model M membrane buckling spring, Alps SCKM amber, blue, and white, and Matias Click and Tactile.
[...]

agreed, +1, i like that too, and i agree greens kinda feel like a hackjob emulation, but i kinda always liked them...

[Hypersphere]

Typing this on a KBP V60 Type R with mx greens. Actually not bad when programmed to a HHKB layout and fitted with PBT caps (it now has Ducky alphas from the Cream and Green set, blank black mods and spacebar, and blue Esc and Fn for accents). The greens are growing on me, as it were. Greens in a Filco should actually be rather nice.

V60R_2.jpg (1.18 MiB) Viewed 4571 times

[Kurozumi]

Got my little pack of switches yesterday (2x Green, 2x Black, 2x Clear)!
Here's some funny thing i noticed, i had some unused spare greens from the Filco modification back then (greens made in 2011), the greens that came now are from 2017, and they are different!
I i had a guess, i would say the spring weight is a bit lighter than the old ones. The difference i noticed is the tactile bump is a bit sharper and after the click, the switch is down, even if i use less force than i would usually type.
They feel a bit snappier and less stiff, which is kinda just what i wanted to begin with....

As for the others, well blacks are the new retooled ones, the same but just smoother, than the ones i got.
Clears are still Clears, still don't like them for the reasons i stated before.

The modified versions, Ghost Blacks and Panda Clears, i quite like the Panda clears, the tactile bump is more noticable and the bottom out feels way less mushy, they are are snappier albeit not as smooth as stock at the tactile bump.

The ghost blacks are funny, too, it feels now is kinda happening something more. As they are a bit lighter at the start and very cushony at bottoming out, you kinda feel quite good how much the switch is pressed. Feels really good, but i could imagine that the fingers will fatigue on typing sessions.

That's the first impressions....

@Hypersphere: That's my old daily driver

IMG_20181006_123735.jpg (1.1 MiB) Viewed 4540 times

[Muirium]

What are “ghost blacks” then? MX blacks with MX clear springs?

(Searched the wiki but came back with dick. My MX mods knowledge is weak—only really know about Ergo Clears—and so too is the wiki’s! A nudge to the dwarves.)

[Kurozumi]

What are “ghost blacks” then? MX blacks with MX clear springs?

(Searched the wiki but came back with dick. My MX mods knowledge is weak—only really know about Ergo Clears—and so too is the wiki’s! A nudge to the dwarves.)

Yes, Clear Spring + Black Stem is called Ghost Black don't know why it's called that way, but i guess since the stem of clear is a bit translucent it kinda makes sense...

[klennkellon]

If you want a stiffer clicky switch you might as well swap in Novelkeys thick clickbar switches as they're a better design than the clickjacket anyways.

[abrahamstechnology]

If you want a stiffer clicky switch you might as well swap in Novelkeys thick clickbar switches as they're a better design than the clickjacket anyways.

I agree, but the retooled BOX switches are still destroying keycaps.

[klennkellon]

If you want a stiffer clicky switch you might as well swap in Novelkeys thick clickbar switches as they're a better design than the clickjacket anyways.

I agree, but the retooled BOX switches are still destroying keycaps.

OP could also get the Speed Navy which is very similar but it doesn't use the box molds.

[Kurozumi]

Hi there, thanks again for all the suggestions, after all the switches i had for testing, i now went with panda clears. I don't know, in the testing process they kinda grew on me, and after years with the greens i kinda thought it was time for a change. Typing with panda power for a week now and i really like them so far!

Had some clickbar switches for testing, too, how can you guys stand the double clickiness? The click on the upstroke kinda drives me insane.....