Keycult 1/60 - Cherry MX2A Browns on Aluminum Plate Typing Sounds

Описание: Oct 30th, 2024 EDIT/ADDENDUM - Just wanted to put out a little addendum to my previous statement and say that I actually don't think the MX2A browns are responsible for cracking the stems of my GMK Burgundy, I believe its something wrong with this specific set itself. I have mounted the caps onto other switches like Gateron red inks and the cracking is still happening. I have never experienced this with any other GMK set and I have no idea why this is happening, its like the stems are just extra brittle on this specific set of burg. Maybe they caps constantly exposed to sunlight causing the plastic to become brittle? I have no idea. The MX2As were unfortunately the first switches to make this problem super obvious to me. Just wanted to clear the MX2A's name and walk back on my previous statement, sorry for any confusion or misinformation.

PSA: BEWARE OF USING MX2A SWITCHES WITH GMK KEYCAPS (SPECIFICALLY OLDER SETS)!!!

There's a TL;DR at the bottom of this write up if you wanna skip over my yapping.

Before I give my thoughts on the MX2As I just want to detail my experience of them cracking the stems of the bottom row mods from my set of GMK Burgundy. It just had to be burgundy feelsbadman.

This wasn't the first time I tested out the switches, I had them in the Fjell at some point with GMK Hineybeige and had 0 issues. This time I wanted to test them out in my 1/60 that I pair with GMK Burgundy. When I started to mount the keycaps I put on only the bottom row caps (L/R Ctrl, Winkey, and Alt) and noticed that for some reason the right winkey wasn't actuating for reason like I physically couldn't push the switch down. The reason why it wasn't actuating was because the right winkey's stem had been cracked in a way where it was bulging out and hitting the top housing not allowing the stem slider to be pushed down thus the switch not actuating at all. After realizing this I quickly unmounted the rest of the bottom row mods and they had all been cracked to my dismay.

Here's a picture of the right winkey keycap's stem after trying to glue it back together. You can definitely still see the cracks and I made sure to circle them in red: https://imgur.com/a/tcuQMcX

So while I was able to fix the stems for the most part with some superglue, this is still really disappointing and shouldn't have even happened in the first place. I would have never used the MX2As with my set of GMK Burgundy if I had problems trying them out with GMK Hineybeige earlier, which I didn't as previously stated. My set of Burgundy definitely wasn't new and had tight stems still, it was well used and the bottom row mods were actually loose onmy inks, so its crazy that the MX2As still cracked every single bottom row mod that I mounted them to. I'm assuming this is because the GMK sets have been manufactured during different years and the molds have changed. GMK Hineybeige was able to accommodate the MX2A stems, while GMK Burgundy could not.

Since then, I have used the Geon trimmer tool to trim the stems of the MX2A browns and that's totally fixed the problem. The trimmer took off a lot of material from the x-axis and if you refer to the Imgur pictures, that's exactly where the stems had been cracked.

Cracked stems aside, for my actual thoughts on the switches, they're fine. They are noticeably smoother in feel vs Hyperglide browns. This smoothness leads to some of the usual cherry scratch being reduced so not as much character as a Hyperglide switch. The MX2As are noticeably quieter as well vs Hyperglides. I wouldn't say the MX2As sound deeper like vintage cherry switches do, its the same pitch as Hyperglides but just slightly more muted if that makes sense. I would 200% still go with Hyperglides over the MX2As in all honesty. The smoothness is not worthy trade off if I have to worry about my GMK caps getting cracked.

TL;DR - Beware of using Cherry MX2A switches with GMK keycaps, especially older sets as they have cracked the stems on my set of GMK Burgundy. As a safety precaution for use with GMK keycaps, trim the stems of the MX2As with the Geon trimmer. In comparison to Cherry Hyperglides, they are noticeably smoother and quieter.

Thanks for reading this all if you've gotten this far.

Keyboard Specs:

Keycult 1/60 Rev 1. Burgundy Brass (Reanno by Prime in Korea)
3305 Millmaxed PCB
Aluminum Leafspring Full Plate
Holee Modded Cherry Clips w/ GHV4
Cherry MX2A Browns
Leafshroud Modded
TX 62g Medium Springs
Lubed w/ 205g0
Filmed w/ Deskeys Films
GMK Hineybeige

Audio Setup:

Lewitt LCT 440 Pure XLR in Shock Mount (Positioned Head Level Above Keyboard)
Focusrite Scarlett Solo Audio Interface (Gain Dial at 3 O'clock)
Rode PSA1 Boom Arm Mounted to Desktop