Acorn Eye

I agree with some of the people here, cherry switches are absolute garbage. They aren't the worst, but that's about all they have going for them. As far as gaming is concerned, forget it. Keyboards don't make a significant impact on how well you game. Heavy switches, light switches, tactile switches, linear switches, they all perform the same. The difference is how much you enjoy them, so choose a switch you like, not one that you think is "better". If you can spring a bit extra for a custom keyboard, I highly recommend that. A GMMK with Kailh switches is around $110usd Otherwise just get a mechanical keyboard you think looks nice, and one that hopefully doesn't have cherry switches.

I'm no electrical engineer but if I had to guess, there's still liquid inside the switches causing a short with the leaf. Sounds like your pcb is fine. You might be able to access the switch housing without having to desolder them. As a bonus you could buy some thin lube and lube the spring and sliders. If there's any dead switches, turn over the pcb and short out the two legs, if that registers a keypress, the pads are fine, but there's something preventing the switch from shorting out.

Got my box navies in the mail yesterday, just tried transplanting box jade springs into the navies and vice versa. I thought the spring wouldn't be enough to reset the click bar but it works just fine. Compared to a stock jade its quieter and bassier (though higher pitched), and for some reason also feels lighter though very close. Box jades with a box navy springs feel very similar to navies, except higher pitched and louder.

All good, no need to apologize. Though I'm curious, how would you feel about a 96 key layout? You lose 8 keys but it retains the physical arrows. It's only slightly larger than a tkl in width I run a very similar layout though slightly modded And even still, despite always wanting as many keys as possible I'm starting to build this keyboard to keep my fingers near the home row at all times

I'd have to create a socket to adapt it to a PCB through hole. This is more complicated and probably expensive than just simply getting the $8 pcb mount one. The $2 chassis mount ones are pretty much the same,

That's the reason for the oft overlooked numlock key. In this layout it actually makes sense to have. You don't physically have the keys of the full-size, but you still have access to them through num lock. However even better they have an improved numlock layout where the arrow keys are t-shaped rather than plus shaped.

Those are 3 position cables. I'm planning on using them to connect two halves of a split keyboard. So for i2c that's 4 pins. I could go over serial I believe, but I don't know how well that would work for a keyboard.

For some reason PCB mount 4 position mini XLR sockets are way too expensive, around $8 per. Meanwhile chassis mounted ones are comparatively cheap at $2 per. I found one listing for 50 / $120. And while that's great, I don't have that cash, and I doubt there'd be enough interest to start a group buy. So I'm stuck trying to figure out how to properly adapt a straight pinned chassis mount to a pcb. One idea of mine is to solder right angle leads to them, however there's an overlap. (chassis mount connectors just go straight through.) Another idea is to use a molex connector to connect the connector to the pcb. But this might end up costing as much as just getting a pcb mounted mini xlr.

As always you come out with a lengthy and detailed response. This really clears things up for me.Thanks!

I'm a bit confused by this, from what I can tell PLCC8 is pretty much the same size as 5050, but SK6812 RGBW LEDs are readily available and have an IC on them. Putting separate packages close together on a strip is also a fairly common technique. It's used in RGB+CCT like so |CW| |RGB| |W| But having three LEDs is convenient as it drastically decreases the footprint. Trying to do what I'm thinking off would be considerably more bulky |CW | |520| |WW | |365| |620| |445| |480| |740| |700| For the drivers, does the 39 x 9 one make more sense even? The 36 channel one has RGB banks, which leads me to believe controlling it would involve hack-y methods

There are mechanical switches that are quieter than membrane, such as the type-s topre switch. Though when it comes to type-s topre keyboards, they run a pretty penny. There are other switches out there that aren't that much loader than membrane, and still quieter than some. Such as the Aliaz and Zilent switches. Here's a sound test of a keyboard with Aliaz switches. Cherry keys are notoriously mediocre. They aren't the best at acoustics, tactility, or even clickyness. So making judgements of switches from them is a bit unfair. There are tactile switches that have low profile too, Novelkey's Choc burnt orange. I couldn't find a video showcasing them exactly, but should sound very similar to these full sized ones. To put into perspective on how tall choc switches are, here's a photo.

I recommend the vortex vibe. It's compact and gets rid of the right keys, the nav cluster instead of the numpad. The case is aluminum and not plastic, the keycaps are thick SA. Plastic cases tend to accentuate the clack more often, so that's probably something to consider. SA keycaps tend to be bassier and quieter as well. It's not wireless however, but does have a detachable cable.

You don't know it's not the keyboard, you could have gotten unlucky 4 times in a row. Test on another computer to be sure.

honestly I should just go to a keyboard meetup, can't make an accurate judgement based off switch alone.

To be honest no, started with outemu blues, built a keyboard with jades, bought a few royals to potentially make a macropad, and that's it. I absolutely love the jades, but I can't imagine ever bringing it to work because of how loud they are. The royals are a decent alternative in the acoustics department, but the lacking sharp tactility is just leaves me wanting. I read Zealio v2s are more tactile than royals but they're also more rounded, which sounds opposite to what I want. Considering my next keyboard will have low profile switches, a switch would have to be as tactile as jades for me to consider it. Otherwise I'll just swap in linear choc switches.