deskthority

I've hade my Skidata with clears for quite a while now, since april this year if im not mistaken. Yesterday I thought I'd open upp a switch to have a look around since they're PCB mounted and I've never opened one before. And since I was thinking of modding my clear switches with lube and red/blue/brown springs (I know there's some arguments abouth these springs not being identical) I thought it'd be good practise. Seemed like a simple task, and it was.

But to my suprise there was some sort of high viscosoty lube/grease on the stem. I've talked to Fruktstund (the person i bought the keyboard from) and he assured me that he hadn't put any grease/lube on the stems.

The lubrication seems to only have been applied to the part of the stem that has the tactical bump. I've tried to take some pictures of the stem with my phone to illustrate... which turned out to be very hard. Anyhow, here's a few pics:


Perhaps this is the best picture, this is the spacebar switch (tactical grey) which also is lubricated (in the same way the others are):


In that pic you can clearly see the orange like grease.

This brings me to the question, was this board lubricated by Cherry or by Skidata, did Cherry use to lube their clear switches?!?

The board was made in 1994 as far as I can tell.

Probably Cherry. The brand-new Clears that I received from 7bit's group buy have a tiny amount of lube on the stems as well. Not of the high viscosity kind, however, more like a clear, colourless oil. Of course, an oil can become sticky and greasy over time.

Yup, I can confirm I didn't lube them.

I hadn't realized before that other switches than Blacks could've been lubed by Cherry before, so this was a bit surprising. Now that I think about it though, could this mean Cherry used to lube their switches with a different kind of lube? Since modern-day Clears seem to be lubed too, I find it pretty reasonable the new Blacks also are, but they're still not as smooth as Vintage Blacks, which makes me wonder!

Oh, and by the way, I'm still mad jealous of of your Swedish/Finish doubleshots.

MX whites are essentially just lubed blues with different colours. A little lubrication really quietens the clicker.

You are probably right Kurrk, that seems very likely then. I didn't know that cherry lubed their switches and that's why I was confused. Thank you.

Yes Swedish doubleshots seem to be quite uncommon, atleast in the Marketplace. I was lucky to get a set .

I bought 2 Skidata boards from ebay and the switches where lubed also...but i thought the DT members know that already!