A brief reflection and look at how far our community has come since joining. I’ve been in the mechanical keyboard hobby for a very long time. It started as a high school student’s search for a keyboard for writing novels back in the 2008-2009 school year. I thought I wanted to be an author and I felt I needed a keyboard that I could sit down to at my desk and just write. After researching, joining forums, and saving money, I made my first purchase in the hobby, a blank black Happy Hacking Keyboard Professional 2. I still own this keyboard and while it is heavily modded now, it remains one of my all-time favorites. My HHKB Pro2 with MitchCapped Accents Many people would have stopped there, but keyboards became a hobby. I enjoyed learning about them, and early on, I enjoyed hunting for them in thrift shops. I would dig through bins at Goodwill and Salvation Army while popping keycaps off with paperclips looking for mechanical switches. I searched for a birthday Model M...
May 7, 2024
- The Silver linear is actually fairly smooth. Not quite as smooth as Gateron, but the trade-off is the decreased wobble, in comparison. The spring is also quite interesting. It's probably due to the pre-travel, but it feels like it ramps up a lot faster, giving it that "cushion-y" feel that I enjoy.
- The Bronze clicky is one of the more unique switches I've used in a long time. It's absurdly smooth and the click is very bright and crisp. The click is actually not achieved by normal means. Instead, there is a thin metal pin on the opposite side of the switch (from the leaf) that gets triggered almost immediately in the press. This results in a click that basically lacks all tactility, so you end up with what is essentially a clicky linear switch. As a fan of linear and thing that are different, I enjoy this one a lot.
-The Gold clicky is a bit more "normal". It sounds and feels more akin to what you'd expect from a clicky MX clone. The click sounds fine, but not impressive. The tactility is okay, but oddly enough it's more tactile on the upstroke. It's pretty smooth, however.
These have been linked here before already, but HaaTa has been kind enough to measure these on his force curve machine. You can find those in here: https://plot.ly/~haata/152
One of the first things you'll notice is how light the spring seems. One the linear, for example, the switch actuates with only 27g of force, while the peak force is a measly 53g. While I'm not 100% sure, I think these numbers are skewed slightly, due to the "pre-travel". Comparing them side-by-side with Gateron Reds, the Kailh Silver actually feels a tad heavier to me, even though the Gateron Red is heavier on paper. In fact, the Silver feels heavier than all of the Red switches in my collection, from Cherry, Gateron, Kailh v1, and Outemu. So take that as you will. I'm not claiming HaaTa's graphs to be wrong, but just know that, with these particular switches, the shown weights might not tell the whole story, in terms of feel.
Overall, I'm pretty happy about the switches. I will definitely be ordering some. Kailh is here and they can finally compete with the likes of Gateron, because this new line-up is very interesting. This isn't the Kailh we knew from years ago.
However, the bottom out force is around 50gf on each (with different preloads). This would indicate that the Kaihua speed switches are using a heavier, shorter spring vs. Gateron Reds using a longer, lighter spring.
https://plot.ly/~haata/150 Gateron Red https://plot.ly/~haata/320 Kaihua Silver
So yes, the Kaihua Silver switches *feel* heavier in terms of the gradient. But in terms of actual energy, Gateron Red switches are more work. (touch wise, I think human hands are better in tune with changes in force rather than how much work you've done; think 1 km run vs. 100 m sprint)
Thanks