Do I Need to Lube My Keyboard Switches?
Figure 1: Sometime around here is a good time to ask that question... If you’re new to the mechanical keyboard hobby, I have no doubt that planning your first keyboard build is a bit of a daunting task. To be entirely honest with you, it’s only a tiny bit less daunting for your second or even third keyboard builds should you stay around a little while longer. You’ve got the keyboard itself to worry about, stabilizers, keycaps, and even switches on top of all of the intangible marks you want your dream keyboard to hit. Switches are especially daunting right out of the gate as there’s just so many options out there to pick from – each with their own unique specifications, manufacturers, and more. Yet, in spite of all of these differences between switches, time and time again I find people always asking about lubing switches as one of their chief concerns when it comes to picking some up. With countless numbers of content creators talking about lubing switches, its no...
Apr 17, 2024
/u/beamingrobot on reddit was designing a DSA set with Japanese alphas and seemed very receptive to JIS compatibility, but IDK what ever came of that and there was the problem of mixing materials (dyesub PBT Kana alphas, doubleshot ABS mods). To be honest, I think most group buy organizers (rightly) focus on meeting the demands of the community and it’s hard to persuade them to support niche layouts for no real reason except that I and a handful of other people want them to. Regardless, DSA doesn’t have an ISO enter mold, and it seems wrong to design a set in a profile without a key the set needs.
Once SP works out the kinks in dyesub SA, that might be a good candidate for a JIS group buy – all the right key sizes and no worrying about the price for molds. GMK double shot is also promising, but they don’t really have the molds to outfit the space bar for any existent JIS keyboard and designing a PCB using a common key size for the space bar is its own can of worms.
Personally if I were to run a group buy very soon I would do classic beige GMK with icon mods and JIS alphas for the most broad appeal, and include ANSI compatibility because I don’t think a set without it is going to hit MOQ any time soon. It wouldn’t fit spacebars for most actual JIS keyboards, but that’s the best option for the JIS layout right now IMO.