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Keyboard Switch Tester

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This article is part of a current project of mine to re-think keyboard haptics, ergonomics and efficiency:

  1. Keyboards
    • Basics of (Mechanical) Keyboards
    • My Personal History of (Desktop) Keyboards
    • My Personal Desktop Keyboard Requirements
    • My Current Plans for Getting a New Keyboard
  2. Keyboard Switch Tester (this article)
  3. Kinesis Advantage2 LF Keyboard: Initial Review and Plans
  4. Kinesis Advantage2 LF Keyboard: My Custom QWERTY Layout, Touch-Typing, Dampening, Switches

If you have read my article about keyboards, you have realized my interest in ergonomics and other details of keyboards. You have also learned that there are many different mechanical switches.

Since the haptic experience of pressing a switch is difficult to describe and even more difficult to imagine, I have decided to buy a switch tester.

I was lucky to find an offer of a large switch tester which is brand new and which was bought accidentally twice. I got it for about 50€.

Here are the all the switches:

Switch tester without caps. (click for a larger version)

Fully assembled, the tester holds 72 switches in an array. Rest assured that this is by far not the entire selection of switches available on the market.

Switch tester with default switches and caps. (click for a larger version)

Fortunately, the seller was that friendly to add three additional switches to the package: Zilents V2 62g and 67g as well as Glorious Panda.

I also have spare switches from my Z-88 keyboard which are Outemu brown.

For direct comparison, I switched four switches with those:

Switch tester with custom switches and caps. (click for a larger version)

At the moment, my favorite switches are:

clicky Kailh Speed Bronze
tactile Zilents V2 62g
linear Gateron Silent Red

Stay tuned for updates on my new mechanical keyboard which I'm already typing on at the moment. Soiler: it did come with switches that are not part of that top three list above.


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