Lubing Alps switches?

[bitemyweewee]

Heya fellas!

My AEKII's switches are in need of a good lube as they've become quite gammy to depress.
Was wondering what the ideal lube and techniques were for "playing" with my Alps switches? huehuehue
Do the same lubes commonly used on cherry sliders work well with Alps?

Would love it if you could shoot me some links or a give me a rundown of what works well and what doesn't.
I have some sewing machine oil laying around, would that work?

Cheers!

[jacobolus]

Most important thing is to clean all the dust and grit out of them. (I suspect that using an ultrasonic cleaner for this might be a big improvement over just soaking in detergent.) Then you can lube with Krytox or whatever. The sides of the slider where it slides against the top housing are the most useful parts to lube. If you want you could also probably put a spot of lube at the top/bottom of the spring, and maybe some where the slider pushes against the metal leaves.

I haven’t done too extensive investigation: lubing switches is kind of a pain, so I haven’t bothered too much so far.

If you come to any insights, I’d love to hear about it.

[sth]

I think you'd probably want to be pretty careful when lubing those dampened sliders. anything too close to the rubber might start to attract dust. alps are sort-of convenient in that you can open them on the plate but that's tempered by the fact that event the simplified switches are more confounding and "explosive" than cherry MX. have fun!!

[bitemyweewee]

-snip-

Forgot to mention, I took the dampeners out. They sucked, lol

[Muirium]

But they're the whole point! Gah.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Nooo … they take away the nice Alps clack noise!

… the simplified switches are more confounding and "explosive" than cherry MX.

You mean SKBL/SKBM (actual simplified Alps) or the mistaken use of "simplified Alps" to refer to non-Alps products?

SKBL/SKBM are a little odd, but not as confusing as Cherry MX, which is a lot odder than you think, especially when you start mixing in the albino versions and all the Hirose versions.

I'm still not 100% clear on Type A and Type B White — neither is white in colour (they're both clear), and one of them is albino Blue (the other may be an albino MX White), but we only have allegations from one guy here about all the albino versions, but there are hints at this from looking at the albino Hirose switches.

I'm hoping that we can find some mid-80s catalogues that confirm all the original colours from the German switches; we may never get any details on Hirose's, and whether they were actually genuinely truly Cherry MX (MX__-______ part numbers), or given a different series name and part numbers. (The only fundamental difference was the mount, and the MX designation does not preclude alternative mounts.)

[bitemyweewee]

I think I may just replace all the switches with matias click. The existing switches are so gammy that I can't type on them.

[Muirium]

See, you went and wrecked 'em, man! Should have gone straight to Matias in the first place…

Despite what Daniel says, the damped tactile switches in AEK IIs are jolly nice, in my opinion. They were Alps' attempt to solve the same issue as Topre's (super costly) Type S. The sound of a good damped switch is music to my ears, so long as they're in good condition:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rwg5lzuz245z ... d%20II.m4a

[Hypersphere]

I've only tried Matias click switches briefly, on a borrowed Mini Tactile Pro, but I liked them quite a lot -- more than any Cheery mx I have tried, but not as much as Topre or capacitive buckling spring.

[bitemyweewee]

See, you went and wrecked 'em, man! Should have gone straight to Matias in the first place…

Despite what Daniel says, the damped tactile switches in AEK IIs are jolly nice, in my opinion. They were Alps' attempt to solve the same issue as Topre's (super costly) Type S. The sound of a good damped switch is music to my ears, so long as they're in good condition:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4rwg5lzuz245z ... d%20II.m4a

I'm getting a sense of you mad bro? The switches are in bad condition yeah, I though taking em out would fix that but nope. I will now replace them with matias. I don't wanna spend money though, I'll probably swap my MX Black harvest for like 200 of them

[Muirium]

Yeah, I'm just teasing. It's not like you trashed some fresh ones. Matias makes damped switches too, of course, and your AEK would be more authentic with a clean set of those…

I just wish MX could be damped on the upstroke as well as the down.

[bitemyweewee]

Yeah, I'm just teasing. It's not like you trashed some fresh ones. Matias makes damped switches too, of course, and your AEK would be more authentic with a clean set of those…

I just wish MX could be damped on the upstroke as well as the down.

I'm not so worried about it being authentic... ish, they're very common boards and I don't feel as if it needs to be treated like god tier Industrial model M's. I'd rather it look like new/stock but still be personalized to what I like with fresh switches.
These switches man... they're like nails on a chalk board