deskthority

I've had it with this Gateron SCRAP.

Another batch of Gateron switches and another mishap because they even fail at making 1:1 copies of Cherry MX switches.

Just got my KC60 from Massdrop today - assembled with Gateron Reds. I like it red and thought I could save a little money by going Gateron. Manufacturer of the KC60 seems to be NPKC ... somehow the same people that make the Whitefox ? Or maybe at least related. Well anyway the use the same kind of Costar stabilizers and those are actually the ones I like!

But ... not in combination with Gateron switches of that particular batch. Because Gateron decided to increase the size of the lower switch shell a little bit, effectively giving the switch a little rim that sits nicely on the plate.

Unfortunately, the stabilizer wire hits this rim when the keycap is pulled UP. This prevents the stabilized keys from raising all the way up and holds them 1-2mm below the other keys of the same row. Fook me for not taking a pic of this before I fixed it.

Well didn't take long to realize what's wrong here. And again I didn't just mix random switches with my choice of stabilizer and complain. The keyboard came to me assembles like that!

The stabilizer wire sits on the black rim of the Gateron lower shell. You can see that rim very well on all the other switches. Also note the wrong profile "S" key ... See how the stabilizer wire only reaches about 1-2 mm below the upper end of the stabilizer rails.

Fortunately the plate allows switch top removal so I did that and then cut off the part of the lower switch case that was blocking the stabilizer wire. Took a little work with a fresh blade on my x-acto knife:


After the cutting:



Assembled back together, you can now see how the stabilizer wire is sitting on the plate and both ends of the stabilizer wire reach 1-2 mm higher than before. Sorry for the different angle ...


Once again a messed up batch of Gaterons. I'm sick of it. My first batch of Gateron Reds had too small cutout in the upper shells and as soon as I put some OG Cherries on them, the keycaps would occasionally hit the upper shell, getting stuck for a moment. This issue only affects this special type of stabilizer but it's the only version of Costar stabilizers that doesn't rub against thick keycaps ...

Christ. Fucking woeful. Between this and their shitty brittle caps, I think I'm done with them.

They probably only compatibility tested with actual Cherry stabs.

Yup just like they only compatibility tested their old switch tops with third party kecap stems ...

Problem is ... I have no idea what they will come up next. Upper shell improvement that will collide with DSA caps?

My lesson ... I'm back to Cherry MX when it comes to custom keyboards, builds and modding/replacement. Gateron should stop selling their switches individually and focus on the OEM business where they can make the right switch for a given mount/stabilizer/keycap combination and everyone will love them for their smoothness.

At least they're actually iterating their design. Cherry hasn't retooled for... 30 years?

It doesn't excuse their idiocy, though. I'm typing on what may be one of the few keyboards with Gateron switches without any QC issues, so I suppose I won the lottery.

the board i currently use has trouble with OG cherry doubleshots, sometimes that is, on random it'll get stuck when you try to press it in either top corner, other than that no problems at all

Haven't had any issues with the Gateron Blacks I swapped into my Filco (typing on it now). They were a fairly early batch, though, and have Gateron caps on them.

The plastic on their stems bothers me with how soft it feels, but they're so damn smooth I put up with it. Much better than modern Cherry, unfortunately. Vintage MX is still king, though. I also never swap caps on them for fear of ripping a stem in half. Their caps fit ludicrously tight.

So far I have five keyboards with Gaterons. First one is a face.b with Gateron Red where I had to replace the switch tops with Cherry MX donor tops to prevent this stuck issue with OG caps. Works perfectly fine since.

Second one has Gateron Blues from the same vendor ordered at the same time with no switch top issues as all. Flawless batch. Then I got a Magicforce68 with Gateron Reds - no issues at all.

Recently I built Whitefox with Gateron Reds and had no issues at all once more. Now this KC60 is giving me issues again.

2/5 failure rate for me so far. But never an issue I couldn't fix. Still all issues required some advanced nerdom to fix them.

I have found that the milky switches have the keycap sticking issue, but I have yet to encounter a switch with the newer clear top that has had this problem. I don't really believe that it was intentionally a design feature like Zeal said, the reason apparently being that it stopped some debris falling into the switch. I think it is more likely that they wanted to rush a product to market and didn't do extensive testing for time and/or budget reasons.

I have never had the stabiliser problem, but then again I don't have a keyboard with costar stabilisers and Gateron switch housings. Does strike me as another case of lack of testing to keep costs low.

I have never had any problem with their keycaps, but then again I thought that they weren't actually the OEM for the keycaps and it was another company? Can't remember the source of the top of my head, but I think it was discussed when EnjoyPBT caps came out and people asked if they were made by Gateron. The conclusion was they were made by the same OEM (please correct me if I am wrong).

Wodan: It is not easy to see, so I can't tell for 100% certainty, but it appears to me that it is the stabiliser mounting holes in the plate that are at fault in your KC60.
They look as if they are centred to be in line with the switch holes when they should have been slightly offset. With that offset, the stabiliser wires should have cleared the switch bottoms. Actually.. the stabilisers are usually mounted with the wire on the "diode side" of the switch with the offset in that direction.

Thus far, I have had good experiences with Gateron switches and keycaps.

However, the KC60 is another story. I returned my first one to Massdrop and eventually got a refund (broken mini-USB connector). I got another (Cherry mx browns), but it has a number of issues, including a loose-fitting mini-USB connector, keycaps not bottoming out correctly, and stabilized keys sticking. The best thing I can say about it is that the programming works.

Regarding Gateron keycaps, it should be noted that they are not quite the same profile as "Cherry". The skirt length on the caps matches most Cherry profile caps, but the stem is a bit longer, so that when the caps are installed on a keyboard, they sit a bit higher than Cherry or Leopold profile, but still lower than "OEM" profile. This makes it difficult to match Gaterons with sets from other manufacturers. This was an issue for me, because I like to mix alphas from one set and mods from another set.