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Keyboard Switch Measurements

Jul 29, 20183566 VIEWS

So a little about this project. I have a caliper that I purchased from Amazon and I wanted to get some stem measurements with them. Sadly, due to the design of the BOX switch, I could not measure the center area of the stems. I was only able to measure the upper region of the stem that the caliper could reach. There has been talk about BOX switches breaking keycaps due to their size.

Most of the switches have come from switch testers & a sampler pack. The reason there are so many BOX black and Gateron red is because I have two keyboard that use them. Since tooling is always a part of the discussion, here is a breakdown of when I received these switches.

Cherry switches: January 2017
Gateron switches: January 2017
Gateron reds on my MagicForce 49key: April 2017
BOX black on my Contra: January 2018
Other Kailh switches: January 2018

The dimension call outs on these two pictures correlate to the dimensions on the excel sheet.

THE RESULTS

(Edited)

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Jul 31, 2018

I am disappointed about how the already out there box switches are being addressed... "The specs were always available" seems like a pretty lame answer to me. I hope that someone comes up with an easy way to "fix" older box switches.

BlueCrowned

5305

Aug 3, 2018

MoguriIf you look at the novelkeys site they actually aren't on there that I could see, and even if they were no one expects switches advertised as having a standard mount and working with all MX keycaps to destroy GMK keycaps

LevelSteam

Aug 3, 2018

MoguriBasically if you're looking to fix an existing box switch you'll want to desolder it and replace it with something else.

BlueCrowned

5305

Jul 31, 2018

Suddenly I am very glad that my Laser was delayed an extra week.

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LevelSteam

Aug 4, 2018

Well, I bought the Navy switches from KBDfans and not them, so I don't feel like it's their responsibility to begin with. Plus I don't want to take a blocknet, kobe, and mitowaves kit from the spares that are set aside for people that get defective caps. Once everything is done shipping out and being replaced, if @XiK or someone wants to kick me some spares that would be cool, but I certainly don't expect it from them.

BlueCrowned

5305

Aug 4, 2018

LevelSteamOh okay, I was assuming you got your box switches from MD for some reason lol

erickong

7412

Mech Keys Moderator

Jul 30, 2018

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/935f6l/box_switch_updates_from_novelkeys/

LevelSteam

Jul 30, 2018

erickongLol, just came here to post the same update. Nice to see that it's being addressed already though.

KM1337

1881

Jul 30, 2018

Looks like Long Hua Browns (also relaited to kailh i believe) are also too wide around the x-axis- the keys on my rk 104 are showing the same white streaks- dont have calipers to confirm width

yanfali

1544

Jul 29, 2018

Speculation has been PBT is both stronger and can stretch so is less likely to crack. Almost all the cracked stems have been ABS, which GMK uses exclusively to make their caps.
Some people have claimed the PBT caps are looser after some time.

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KM1337

1881

Jul 29, 2018

After seeing this, I pulled all my laser keys off of my Box OJ's and sure enough the laser keys have stress lines, my outerspace bar is cracked almost all the way up the stem and so are my tai-hao arrow keys....... HECK HECK HECK
Oddly enough, my DSA keys from granite are fine though O.o

Vote

Jul 29, 2018

my XDA canvas has been sitting on my BOX blacks for months and I decided to put the caps on my daily driver since the caps havent been typed on. No problems with loose caps at all

LevelSteam

Jul 30, 2018

erickongWell that's good news at least :)

LevelSteam

Jul 29, 2018

That seems really odd. Maybe the issue is with the box itself putting stress on the stems then.

Vote

Jul 29, 2018

Is the x-axis measurement you are talking about correlate with my dimension 2? If you look at the Google spreadsheet. The box blacks are very precise. Very little variance between switches. Unlike the gateron reds

LevelSteam

Jul 29, 2018

erickongYeah that's the one I'm referring to. The user over on Geekhack used a different caliper and got these results:
Box Royal X-Axis Width: 1.32mm Cherry Red X-Axis Width: 1.25mm Cherry Clear X-Axis Width: 1.25mm
Box Royal Y-Axis Width: 1.10mm Cherry Red Y-Axis Width: 1.09mm Cherry Clear Y-Axis Width: 1.20mm

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