Clicky Switch Mechanisms: A Starter
Image Credit: @Tracipang For being one of the big three types of mechanical keyboard switches, clicky switches are often incredibly underrepresented in discussions about switches at large. Whether this is a function of them seemingly being sought after more by beginners or because of clickies’ less than stellar performance notes historically, this lack of adequate discussion often leads to newer users having a complete lack of understanding of what actually makes a clicky switch clicky and how to differentiate them. Pile on the fact that the recent year or so of releases have seen a massive uptick in the variations in clicky switch designs, and even just clicky switches on their own can be a daunting challenge for people to pull apart. In order to help establish a decent base of knowledge for people interested in clickies to start out with, I figured a brief overview of the two main types of clicky switches would be useful. (As for the other half dozen or so types, I’ll...
Jun 7, 2023
High-Strength Material Not all ABS plastics are created equal. Different raw material ratios in ABS blends will change specific material properties. DCX keycaps are made of the same high-quality ABS plastic that make up MT3 double-shot keycaps. That means you can expect the same color vibrancy and shine resilience that so many have come to love. The manufacturing process that we're using is expected to be compatible with PBT as well—so once we've gotten our ABS production humming along, we'll be experimenting with PBT to see what we can come up with.
Expansive Kit Compatibility Like many of our offerings, our goal is to have a single Base Kit that can accommodate a variety of popular keyboard layouts. The Base Kit that will be offered for initial DCX keycap sets will include the following: We’ve also designed the DCX toolsets with extensibility in mind, with plans to add sublegends, novelties, alice, ortho, 40s, icon mods and anything else the community comes up with too. In-Stock Availability DCX Keycap sets will be produced with the same ethos as all of our keycap offerings: to expand community accessibility via in-stock availability. It takes us 4 – 6 months to go from an idea, to color matching, to resin acquisition, mass production, quality control, and finally shipping. When in production, we can make sets quickly and efficiently at scale so that we can deliver preorders and have sufficient inventory for drop.com and other distribution channels. As part of our launch program, we'll be revealing an interest check/poll for the community to vote on different colorways. The most popular selections will go into production and ship in Q3 2022. DCX tools will be available to any designer who wants to release a set of keycaps that meets MOQ requirements. What's next? Next week, we'll review some close-up studio photos of the keycaps, start the poll for a future colorway, and talk about sprue marks and Mac compatibility. (edit: profile name change)