deskthority

Has anyone ever tried ergo whites? By that I mean a Cherry MX White with the spring from a Red/Blue/Brown?

I like the idea of a quieter blue. I have some Whites and clear arriving soon so I will be trying them out but I wondered if anyone had any prior experience.

I am afraid that that would just be the same as a Blue switch.

The click comes from an inner sliding hitting the bottom of the switch, propelled by the leaf spring that closes the circuit. That mechanism is not dependent on the main spring. The sliders are the same in all Blue, White and Green switches, just different colours AFAIK. The leaf spring is the same in all types of Cherry MX switches.

Doesnt the white have a different slider? Its black rather than white and has different length legs compared to the white slider on blues and greens.

http://imgur.com/a/wuToY#off5c

I think they are all the same. Difference is only in colour. Mx blue has softer spring than white. Someone glued blue and white part and made something like ergo clear. You will stil have tactile bumb without clicking ig you glue them togother

apparently

I have a whole board I did in skim milks (called milks in Asia, and these are lighter get it?). They feel drastically different than blues. It does have a different slider, but the difference is in the inside part where the white piece moves. It has a shorter drop and less hysterisis. They aren't really super clicky, and defineatly don't make any loud click noises. I like them a lot better than ergo clears as well, as they still have a very good tactile feel but without the reset lag.

ripster was looking at the wrong click, the album makes no sense;
there's no upward click, only when you take the switch apart and let the leg ends snap upward over the leaf - which isn't happening in an assembled switch as it's stopped by the casing.
The bump is the working part of the slider.

Yeah, I have no idea what Ripster is talking about. That part of the slider is not used and on the samples I measured, there was no difference in the length of the legs. I've also put a cleaned slider from a white on a blue stem and it clicked like a normal blue.

I've made two ergo-white boards now. They have an interesting feel.

http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=38923

The design of the stem and slider between blue and white are the same in every important dimension that I could measure. Same throw, etc. The main difference is that Cherry puts a very small amount of grease in the slot on the slider. This controls the speed of the slider and suppresses the click without really changing the feel of the tactile part of the movement. It also introduces another variable that accounts for some sample-to-sample variance in click. Loligagger on GH cleaned the grease out of his whites to try and make the sound more consistent between samples. Strangely, cleaned MX whites still have a subtly softer click than blues.

rknize wrote:Cherry puts a very small amount of grease in the slot on the slider

Hehe, just found this out myself 5 minutes ago. I'm pretty convinced that's where the money's at.

One more factor for a softer click could be slightly different material properties between the white and black clicky-slider. Can't think of a way to find out though.

Yeah, I mentioned this in the GH thread. It might account for why the white stem with the slider from a blue was still a bit quieter than a blue stem with a cleaned slider from a white.

I noticed a difference, and I guess I described it very poorly... I will try again if you compare both looking down inside facing with the piece that the spring goes around, you will notice the internal slider is shorter on the white. A picture would be best, but I can't do that right now.

With the whites I have, comparing between a blue, a skimmed milk (i like that name) and a stock white. The blue makes a more definite "click" sound whereas both whites make a more satisfying "thock" and to me it feels like there is a more pronounced tactile bump between the blue and white with blue spring. Of course this is purely anecdotal evidence but thats just how I percieve them.

IvanIvanovich wrote:A picture would be best ..

i agree

I still can't the hell make out any difference neither between the stems nor the clicky sliders.
I like the skim milk name.

Interesting kind of tactility on the clicky switches: the feedback seems to originate from the vibration of the click rather than from friction. (and what your brain makes of the audio feedback of course)

As soon as i get the silicon grease i ordered i'm going to try for a soft click blue.

I use "dielectric silicone grease", available at any automotive parts store. It's the same stuff. It's also commonly used on polyurethane suspension parts. Greasing the slider on a blue has a similar effect, though care needs to be taken not to use too much. I applied it with a toothpick.

The grease arrived! Yes, it's also from an automotive supplier - sold for car plastics lubing, transparent.

So i went ahead and made a: we may refer to it as "latte azzurro".
Fascinating how you can eliminate most of the click that way.
I carefully put a little grease only on the inside rail of the white "clicky-slider", after removing it from the stem. I did use a little more than cherry though, that's why mx whites are still clicky while the one i made just barely is.

I find the regular click of blues unbearable and would never consider a board with them; however the grease ones i could definitely imagine using.

edit already: after some twiddling seems the click recovered to white level, so now it's "cherry soft-click" .. still like it (although a little less :p).

IvanIvanovich: i compared the 2013 whites with blues once again and there's no discernable physical difference - both switches are from 7bit's gb.
Since there exist a few clicky white versions i'm convinced that we've been talking about different whites.
Do you have these: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=17221.0 ?

btw: my whites have black springs

Interesting thread, I recently got some whites from 7bit too and noticed that the sound varies wildly. Some sound like blues while others click much softer. Good to know that this is due to grease. I figured it must be something about the switch bottoms in my poker, since I took apart the whites and installed them into the switches already in my poker. But I got some grease on the way and will try and see if I can replicate JMneuv success of making them all soft-click The blue level is definitely to loud for work.

I haven't field tested them though, so i'd suggest you do just a couple to begin with and use them for a week or so, then do the rest.

Jmneuv wrote:I haven't field tested them though, so i'd suggest you do just a couple to begin with and use them for a week or so, then do the rest.

Have you used them for weeks now? How did it work out?

I need to get my whites working as intended, the tactility is different on all the switches so it's hard to type without smashing all the switches just to be sure that you actuated them.

I had replied in the mx gb thread.
Afraid, i do only own a few tester switches, i don't have them in use.

I use one lubed white (Krytox GPL 205) on my clear board as the caps-lock key. The idea was to make it more noticeable when accidentally pressing caps-lock. It has no audible click at all anymore (which kinda defeats the purpose of putting it there I guess). It still feels different then other tactile switches though (which of course makes sense due to the unique slider mechanism of the white/blues). I think I rather like it. I might make a full board of these none-clicky whites at some point to test them more thoroughly.

TDub wrote:I use one lubed white (Krytox GPL 205) on my clear board as the caps-lock key. The idea was to make it more noticeable when accidentally pressing caps-lock. It has no audible click at all anymore (which kinda defeats the purpose of putting it there I guess). It still feels different then other tactile switches though (which of course makes sense due to the unique slider mechanism of the white/blues). I think I rather like it. I might make a full board of these none-clicky whites at some point to test them more thoroughly.

I use mine on a full board and I can't even feel the tactile bump in some of the switches when I type. It's like browns with less tactility, and a minor scratch noise as 'click'. Really annoying.

I guess I'll make them ergo whites and try to take some grease off to see if they are usable after that, a non tactile heavy switch is really hard to type on.

huttala wrote:I guess I'll make them ergo whites and try to take some grease off to see if they are usable after that, a non tactile heavy switch is really hard to type on.

That's going to be about blues then.

huttala wrote: I guess I'll make them ergo whites and try to take some grease off to see if they are usable after that, a non tactile heavy switch is really hard to type on.

Mmmh I guess its different for me, there is a big difference between a lubed none-clicky white and a black switch for example. Also I was recently thinking my lubed vintage blacks could be heavier

Jmneuv wrote:

huttala wrote:I guess I'll make them ergo whites and try to take some grease off to see if they are usable after that, a non tactile heavy switch is really hard to type on.

That's going to be about blues then.

There's a big difference from my blue switches and whites with less lube on. I've tried it already and the click sound isn't at all as high pitch as it is on blues. I'm not removing all of the lube, just some of it, and then use the board with springs from reds just in hope to "brake in" the switches so they all get the same feeling.

If they don't I guess I'll just sell them. For sience!

I cleaned one with Brakleen and it sounded like a blue. Lubing the stem guides (not the slider guides) with Dupont Teflon Silicone Lubricant seems to slug the click even more, which makes sense because the same happens with blues. You can clean some of the grease out of the slider with a cotton swab or toothpick, but sometimes they won't click no matter what you do. The same goes for blues. The defect rate on Cherry's clicky switches seems to be on the rise.

I'm finding this thread VERY interesting, so thank you to everyone for contributing your experiences with MX-Whites.

I started with MX-Blues and although I liked them at the time, I ended up getting an MX-Black board in the hopes that it would be quieter, which it has been. I don't bottom out the keys as easily and with the click gone it makes it easier on the other folks in my office.

Last weekend, I paid a visit out to MechanicalKeyboards.com and got the opportunity to try MX-Whites and I really liked the difference between the whites and the blues. Much more subtle click. However, with so many boards that I'm building between the GH-60 and the two Poker PCBs I have already, I couldn't justify buying a KBT Pure with MX-Whites right now. In the meantime, I some a friend is sending me for a Poker build and thus reading this thread has been really helpful.

So I told you all that, just to ask you a few questions.

Since I've been typing on MX-Blacks for the past month or so, I've gotten used to the stronger springs. Yesterday I broke out my MX-Blues and found it very frustrating and surprisingly went back to the blacks. It's unclear if it was just the new caps that put me off, or the light springs, so I'm going to play with it a little more to be sure.

1. What Are The Springs Like?
Looking at the wiki, it would appear that the MX-Whites don't have as strong a spring as the MX-Black, or MX-Green. Is that true?

As far as I remember, the spring in the white looked the same as a spring from a black/green. I believe the wiki agrees. If you look closely, the white has had a few variations over the years.

rknize wrote:As far as I remember, the spring in the white looked the same as a spring from a black/green. I believe the wiki agrees. If you look closely, the white has had a few variations over the years.

Agreed. If there is any difference at all then it is a very minor one. Like the supposed difference between blues/browns/reds spring.

I started with blue, went to browns then reds and ergo clears. So after trying all the light switches, I am now on vintage blacks (poker) and normal clears (2nd poker and ergodox). Can't deal with anything lighter then blacks anymore. Both pokers are lubed with Krytox 205 and i freaking love it. Especially the lubed clears are my perfect switch. They are still very tactile but the 205 takes all the scratchiness out of them.

9 months down the road, what are peoples' experiences?

I have clears on the way and was going to make ergo clears; then I saw whites and the idea of the similar actuation force + soft click appealed to me. However, if the whites still have poor quality control on the lube, and I need to open them all up to re-lube them to avoid annoyance, then whites aren't much less work than ergo clears. If the variance isn't too great (a few out of a hundred) I could just order several extra to swap in if there is a problem.

For those of you with white/ergo clear experience, what would be your recommendation at this point in time? How much variance have you seen in the whites?