10 ms·
Holy Panda Keyswitch
- nlh 7y agoTwo relevant links here for those interested: 1. If this has piqued your interest in mechanical keyboards, head on over to http://old.reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards http://old.reddit.com/r/mechanicalkeyboards and fall deep into the rabbit hole; and 2. Massdrop or Drop or whatever actually went out and manufactured these — I think the first batch sold out but keep an eye here if you’re interested in Holy Pandas: https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-invyr-holy-panda-mechanical-switches https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-x-invyr-holy-panda-mechanical-... (Looks like they’re doing another batch - good timing)
- davidbanham 7y agoHoly hell I never knew the old.reddit.com domain existed. Thank you!
- _-___________-_ 7y agoPretty much the only way to make Reddit usable these days!
- alpaca128 7y agoAlthough the old design isn't exactly perfect either - as soon as the browser window is a bit too narrow the site basically breaks completely, from not properly displaying posted pictures or videos anymore, up to making text smaller when zooming in or moving the whole site content sideways out of the frame if you type a long comment without linebreaks.
- rhexs 7y agoAnother good tip is to always request google.com as a desktop website in mobile safari. If you don't, you get mobile google, which forces you to go to the AMP reddit, which then pops up multiple banners every page load asking you to install mobile reddit so Reddit can track you. Entirely unusable and endlessly frustrating. I think I'm an oddball who uses google.com to browse reddit, but I prefer to to the apps.
- exikyut 7y agoSmiles, watching a https://xkcd.com/1053/ https://xkcd.com/1053/ happen
- hprotagonist 7y agohttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-reddit-redirect/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/old-reddit-re...
- mozmann 7y agoA more generic fix IMO https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/redirector/
- dhagz 7y agoIt's a doubly lucky day - if you want to get the components to make your own, the Holy half is on sale as well: https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-halo-switch-pack https://drop.com/buy/massdrop-halo-switch-pack A website called NovelKeys usually has some form of Panda switch in stock: https://novelkeys.xyz https://novelkeys.xyz
- jrockway 7y agoIs this linked because the switches reached $6 each? I am not surprised. The mechanical keyboard community has a good contingent of people that have a lot of money and nothing to spend it on. People post their keyboard pictures to reddit with a Rolex Submariner or a $750 bottle of scotch in the background. I don't mean this as a criticism in any way, but there is very much that element to it. People pay $600 for a set of keyswitches to get a $600 set of keyswitches, not because of the incremental value over a $0.10 keyswitch.
- dkersten 7y agoI use mechanical key switches and definitely do have other things I’d rather be spending the money on, but I find that they do substantially increase my typing comfort (I didn’t spend $600, but did spend over $300 on my keyboard) so do personally find they’re much better for me than $0.10 key switches.
- jrockway 7y agoOh, I'm talking about mechanical keyswitches when I cite 10 cents. That is approximately what the Cherry clones run for in quantity. (They are about 30 cents at retail.) You may cringe at "clone" but the reality is that after the MX patent expired, the Chinese manufacturers are making way better switches than Cherry ever did. Cherry got so bad that the competition forced them to retool; they would have been perfectly happy selling you scratchy switches from decades-old tools if it weren't for the innovation that is happening in China.
- trampypizza 7y agoIn my experience of Red and Brown switches, Gateron ones have always been more pleasant to use than Cherry ones. On my desk at home I have a Cherry MX Brown board (Cooler Master Masterkeys Pro L) that I am seriously considering taking apart in order to replace the switches because a cheap mech I got years ago with Gateron browns is probably the most plesant switch I have ever used. Edit: Having said that - I admit my sample size is small and I did enjoy the two Cherry MX Blue boards I have used.
- userbinator 7y agoWeight: 67g bottom out if using Panda springs, 100gf bottom out if using Halo True springs That is ridiculously stiff. I wonder how comfortable they are for extended periods of typing.
- 0xffff2 7y agoIsn't the lesser number about the same as Cherry MX Clears? I have one keyboard with clears and while I ultimately prefer the less stiff browns, I don't find the clears to be uncomfortable.
- tdy_err 7y agoIt’s more realistic to interpret a test graph than to look at the PAF #. E.g.: Traditional Cherry switches will increase resistance during the press while HPandas [and many others] dip quickly and settle back into the initial resistance. It’s hard to describe what that feels like in practice, even still.
- jrockway 7y agoSwitches do not activate at the bottom of the travel, they typically activate about halfway down. The force increases linearly to the bottom-out point. (For tactile switches like these, there is an additional spring that is unrelated to the bottom-out force, which makes the first half of the travel non-linear.) The travel after the activation point is just to prevent your fingers from pushing the keys all the way to the bottom. Once you hit the bottom, infinite force yields a movement of 0mm, so it's "infinite grams". So you should look at these numbers as how much cushioning you need after you hit the activation point. With purely linear switches, you don't need a spring to "catch" you, so you can go lower. With tactile switches, the force abruptly goes to almost zero, so momentum will carry your fingers farther down the travel. The bottom-out spring is designed to dissipate that energy before you slam the slider into the bottom of the switch. (As a thought experiment, imagine a car suspension spring as a keyswitch that requires 1 nanometer of travel to activate. You would not tire yourself out typing on that, and you would never bottom out.) I use 67gf bottom-out switches, "Healios", and they are very middle-of-the road in my opinion. I have used lighter switches, I have used heavier switches. I do not bottom out on them, but they do feel about as light as I'm willing to go. (I use Box Navy as my daily driver, which are quite a bit heavier in terms of activation force. Also louder!)
- AlgorithmicTime 7y agoNothing will ever be quite the same as good 'ol buckling springs. Preferably capacitative buckling springs ala IBM Model F. Membrane buckling springs, e.g. Model M, are quite good too.
- falcolas 7y agoI’d be a lot more interested in this wiki entry if there was a bloody force graph. Without that we have to rely on baloney like “a short rounded bump”. What is the definition of short? Rounded? Why is “bump” quoted in the article? If you can’t provide a force graph, at least publish the total travel, the activation force and distance, the deactivation distance, and how far the tactile feedback is from both.
- CarVac 7y agohttps://plot.ly/~haata/377 https://plot.ly/~haata/377 Most tactile mechanical switches have what I call 'slack' at the top before the increase in force: following is my daily driver keyboard's switches, the Novelkeys/Kailh Box Navy. https://plot.ly/~haata/415 https://plot.ly/~haata/415 The Holy Pandas have the bump begin at the very top of the travel, which lends to a firmer feel at the top and a smoother-feeling tactility.
- falcolas 7y agoI thought I had replied earlier, but it appears it was eaten. Thank you for posting those, that picture is worth a bunch of words. That said, it doesn't seem like a mechanical switch I'd want to use. The lack of correlation between the tactile feedback and the activation point would drive me nuts. To me, the value of the tactile feedback is to indicate when the switch has been activated, so I can type without having to bottom out the switches.
- CarVac 7y agoThere are in my opinion two sorts of tactile switches: the ones where the tactility exists so you can be reminded to not bottom out (like Cherry Brown), and ones where the tactility induces you to bottom out, like rubber domes (including topre) and Box Navy. These have the heaviest point before the tactile 'collapse', so once you clear the bump it's mostly smooth sailing all the way to the bottom, but there's enough resistance to eat up most of the energy before impact. This is of the latter sort.
- cpr 7y agoOr skip all this Holy lubed Pandelioz nonsense and get a Steelseries Apex Pro. Astounding smoothness, Hall effect action (no contact), very close to the original TK Microswitch keyboards I used and loved back in the late 70’s at MIT. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_keyboard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_keyboard Great review at https://youtu.be/jfz9TgeZ9m0 https://youtu.be/jfz9TgeZ9m0.
- tdy_err 7y agoWhy yes that is also a keyboard. What do you suppose the odds are that a gaming-peripheral manufacturer sat down and came up with a better switch implementation than any that the mechanical keyboard community could?
- ecf 7y agoVery high. Almost all switches I’ve seen made by the community are simply Frankenstein switches made with different springs, housings, or stems from other switches. For example, all the “Holy Pandas” are is a stem from one brand of switch (halo clear/true) combined with the housing from another (invyr panda).
- sleepybrett 7y agoOptical/Hall Effect switches generally require special PCBs some part of the sensing is often surface mounted to the pcb instead of integrated into the switch housing. There is a hall effect board coming out the mechanical keyboard community called the Keystone (https://kono.store/blogs/keyboards/the-future-of-keyboards) https://kono.store/blogs/keyboards/the-future-of-keyboards)) but generally speaking such an undertaking is to big for the community in general. Requiring both full switch design (generally new switches from the community are simply tweaks to existing designs, maybe just a slight adjustment to the stem, spring, or leaf) or new layouts using existing switch footprints (generally speaking just the cherry mx footprint, but there are quite a few pcbs that will support cherry mx and old ALPs/Matias switches.
- bloopernova 7y agoThat sounds really nice. I'm saving up for an Ergodox split keyboard, now I wish I could get the Steelseries key switches on the Ergodox base.
- tartoran 7y agoAnybody can recommend a decent unconspicuous full mechanical keyboard that does give the feedback but doesn’t bother everyone around? I’ve seen plenty of gamming kbs that I wouldn’t use in an office, I’d like to find one that looks just like a regular keyboard.. Don’t care if it’s wired or not
- ThreeFx 7y agoDo you consider Topre to be "fully mechanical"? IMO Leupold has nice keyboards which look decent.
- tartoran 7y agoI have no idea, I'll check them out. The problem is that I am not sure how noisy these are, I'm sure the feedback is good enough. Btw, I don't care if a keyboard is fully mechanical as long as it has a nice feel to it. Leopold looks nice too.
- Slippery_John 7y agoThey're pretty quiet on their own, but also have further silenced variants (often called type-s or some such). Also look for Topre Realforce or HHKB Pro 2. The latter is what I generally recommend to folks that want to get a good board without having to wait around for the typical group buy periods. The small form factor takes getting used to, but I love it. There's a newer model called HHKB Pro Hybrid that has both wired and bluetooth, but iirc it's a bit hard to find right now.
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- mewse-hn 7y agoThe code keyboard with cherry clears is what I see recommended all the time as a stellar office keyboard. It's got basically zero branding or disco rgb.
- voldacar 7y ago
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- UI_at_80x24 7y agoHow do they compare to buckling springs?
- chaoticmass 7y agoThey are very different, but as someone who has been a die-hard buckling spring user since childhood, I found I actually really like them. I wen to a Mechanical Keyboard meetup (for the first time) last year. I brought my model Ms for people to try out. Someone there had brought his boards and had one of them for sale. Without knowing what it was, I typed on his board he was selling and instantly liked it. He was only asking $200 so I bought it. He was telling me it was using Holy Panda switches, but I had no idea what that meant. I just liked how it felt. It has a very strong tactile bump, right at the top of the travel.
- firemelt 7y agoI wish these switch could be cheaper and mass produced