Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
RSS FeedsJWK Lubed Linear Switch Review
Introduction:
A few weeks ago I finally took the time to try lubricating mechanical switches, more specifically the JWK Unlubed Linear switches sold by 1Up Keyboards. These switches are specifically sold unlubed so customers can lubricate them with their preferred lubricant, amount, and method. Being the first time I have lubricated a batch of switches, I did find myself adapting as I progressed, but that is a separate article. With these switches lubricated, I wanted to spend a good amount of time with them to get a feeling for their lubricated state, treating them like a new switch to review.
As a quick reminder, and to pad out this introduction some more, I purchased these 70 switches from 1Up Keyboards with a discount to support my reviewing them. These feature 62g springs, a clear housing with the bottom being nylon and the top polycarbonate, while the stem is POM. POM is a self-lubricating material, but not to the level of applying Krytox 205g0, which was included with the 1UP60HSE kit I was sent last year. 1Up Keyboards also sells these and the JWK Unlubed Silent Linears in 110 switch bundles that include 5 ml of Krytox 205g0, 120 Durock switch films, branded curved tweezers (for opening the switches), and a small brush, for those interested and in need of everything. I have been testing these switches in the NK65 – Entry Edition which was provided by NovelKeys last year as well. As I covered in the article on lubricating these switches, I applied Krytox 205g0 to the stem on its rails that are held by the bottom housing, as well as the matching rails on the bottom housing, as well as the faces of the stem that can come into contact with the top housing, and the matching surfaces there. Perhaps I did not do the best job of it, but as I said, this was the first time I have lubricated a batch of switches.
Not really knowing what to expect, I felt it best to spend time with these switches, and I am glad I have as it does appear lubricant can take some time to "break in," just like some switches. It is going to be tricky to do some comparisons because I only have my notes and audio recordings to refer to, as I lubricated all of these switches, but I will do my best. The audio should be fairly helpful, which is part of the reason I always make sure to upload the files to GitHub, so anyone may listen and examine for themselves: GitHub.com/GuestJim/Custom-Keyboard-Files/@Switches/JWK Linear – Lubed.
With that covered, time to get into the meat of this switch review. Since lubricating the switches I have written The Forgotten City review and a lot more. I have not kept a precise count but I know I am well past one hundred pages in just one document and spent some time in others since I lubricated these switches.
The cyan and red highlights are matching locations I lubricated.
Review:
I think a good place to start with this review is to explain why I said it seemed the lubricant needed time to break in. Though I doubt I had over-lubricated, I did notice after first using the switches some drag on the action that was not there before. The prospect of trying to remove lubricant was not one I wanted to consider, so I did the more sensible thing of waiting and seeing what would happen. It seemed completely reasonable to me that the lubricant would shift around as I used the switches, and indeed after about a day of use, this feeling was gone.
Going back to before I lubricated the switches, among the notes I have is that these JWK Unlubed Linear switches were already quite smooth. They were not lubricated smooth, like the Silk Yellow switches I reviewed previously, and currently have installed in a new macro pad, but were still smooth. The Silk Yellows, for context, use much lighter springs to the point they can feel like I am only pressing down on the keycaps and not that there is a switch beneath them. As I use them in the macro pad now, I will admit I feel some more friction than I recall, but this is not a review for them.
When I first used the JWK Linear switches after lubricating them, besides the drag I already mentioned, the first thing I noticed was how much quieter they were. I mean they sounded closer to the JWK Silent Linear switches than these sounded when still dry. Of course without a dampener the bottom out noise is still there, but looking at the waveforms it is clear how much quieter these are now.
MXL 990 Microphone
SteelSeries Arctis 7 Headset
These three waveforms are the typing portions from days before lubricating the switches, just after lubricating them, and then three weeks later as in yesterday as I write this. Both of the lubricated waveforms show lower amplitude, though it does appear they are louder now than they were. I am unsure if that is from the lubricant moving around from use or from my getting used to the feeling of the switches and typing faster and/or harder. When we get to the numbers you will see they are not exactly far apart, but I feel like they are a bit louder than they were. I actually was half expecting the recordings to show them being appreciably louder, but after looking at the data and listening to the recordings closely, my expectations were wrong.
While the switches are quieter, there is still some sound to typing on them and this sound has a lower tone than when they were dry. This is actually something I find very interesting and important to catch because when I have seen videos that include someone comparing switches before and after lubricating them, that pitch change is all I can normally pick out, rather than any dampening. Perhaps not everything survives recording and YouTube compression. In any case, I like this lower pitch if only because the higher pitched sound stood out more. What I cannot tell you though is if I am noticing any spring noise. I know that is something I was catching with the JWK Silent Linear switches, and so I will lubricate the springs when I open them up, but not on these. Those have the advantage of removing the bottoming out sound, so that might be making the difference there.
Coming to the feel of the now lubricated switches, I am unsure of how much they have changed. Unfortunately because I have lubricated all of them, I do not have any to compare against, and so must rely exclusively on my notes. From what I wrote previously, it was possible to feel some plastic-on-plastic friction, especially when pressing down slowly. Being a heavy typist, that is not something I am going to notice while using the keyboard normally. As it is now, I can still feel that kind of friction when I specifically press down so the stem slides against the housing. For normally typing, as in I am not trying to have the stem collide with the housing, and even when typing slowly I do not notice that friction. I do wish I had a sample of still dry switches to compare with, but with only two spares, and one of those disassembled, it only made sense to lubricate all of them.
Putting it another way, I am unsure exactly how much the feeling of these switches have benefited from lubricating them, but suspect they may have helped some. They were already pretty smooth switches so the primary benefit to me is the quieter action. To that end, it is time to get to the statistics.
These are the recordings from when I was getting used to these switches again, prior to lubricating them. It was just days later that I lubricated them so there would not have been any additional breaking in to impact them, though it is possible that was not enough time to get used to them again. (I was using the very similar JWK Silent Linear switches before swapping these in, so I expected little time to be necessary.)
According to Audacity, while my voice peaked at -11.829 dB on my MXL 990 recording microphone, my typing only peaked at -21.936 dB. Using the Contrast tool, my voice was at -33.05 RMS dB while my typing was at -53.58 RMS dB, producing a difference of 20.52 RMS dB.
With my SteelSereis Arctis 7 headset, my voice clipped at 0 dB while my typing peaked at -11.859 dB. Going to the Contrast tool, my voice was at -15.03 RMS dB while my typing was at -48.73 RMS dB, resulting in a difference of 33.71 RMS dB.
This recording is from after lubricating the switches, though looking at my notes now, I see the "-" key was not lubricated and as I did press it at times. Honestly, I had forgotten about this, but in any case, we can get to the statistics. With the microphone my voice peaked at -12.81 dB and my typing peaked at -33.633 dB. The Contrast tool says my voice was at -35.86 RMS dB with my typing at -57.51 RMS dB for a difference of 21.65 RMS dB. That is not as large a difference as the roughly 12 dB difference between the peaks, and not what I would expect from how they sounded to my ears, but that is what the audio recorded. Of course the microphone was likely in a different place and I may have spoken a little more quietly, as I cannot control all of these variables, but that is why we have the recording microphone.
Looking at the headset results, my voice still clipped at 0 dB while my typing was captured at -23.717 dB, another difference of roughly 12 dB from before. With the Contrast tool my voice was at -16.23 RMS dB and my typing at -57.39 RMS dB for a difference of 41.15 RMS dB. That gives us a difference of about 8 RMS dB between the two recordings and the headset microphone is more likely to be in a consistent position relative to my mouth and the keyboard. The testing conditions are still not ideal, but the fact both report a 12 dB reduction to the peak, based on the Amplify filter, and how it sounded to me makes me lean strongly towards believing that. These were markedly quieter and, like I said earlier, while they were not quite to the league of the dampened switches, they were much closer to that sound profile than to what they were when dry.
This is the recording I did three weeks later, and as I said before, I was kind of expecting it to show they were louder than after being freshly lubricated. With the recording microphone, while my voice was at -7.472 dB my typing was at -28.378 dB. The Contrast tool says my voice was at -33.80 RMS dB and my typing at -56.86 RMS dB, for a difference of 23.05 RMS dB. This contrast actually has them quieter than they had been, which I find surprising, but it could just be I have gotten used to hearing the typing sounds I was not noticing before. The difference between the peak amplitudes are about the same, with both voice and typing being about 5 dB louder than they were before.
Coming to the headset now, my voice clipped at 0 dB while my typing peaked at -16.771 dB, but without my voice as a marker, that is not so valuable. The Contrast tool, which works with more than just the maximum amplitude, says my voice was at -17.28 RMS dB and my typing at -54.47 RMS dB for a difference of 37.19 RMS dB. That suggests my typing was louder after three weeks, by about 4 RMS dB, but the recording microphone disagrees on that.
It is always so much fun to have measurements disagree like this. Mixing my own subjective sense of the sound profile with these numbers I think I will go with this: These JWK Linear switches are indeed quieter now, having been lubricated and heavily used, than they were dry. They may have gotten louder as use moved the lubrication around on the stem and housing, but remain quieter than they were dry. The profile has also shifted to a lower pitch, which is something I enjoy.
Conclusion:
The final question is has it been worth it to lubricate these switches? I think it comes down to what you want out of a switch. If you want a smooth action then I am at a loss for a clear opinion. These might be smoother now, having lubricated them, but they were already pretty smooth when I was using them dry. If you are looking for a quiet switch then definitely lubricating these makes an impact, and a very noticeable one at that.
If you are wondering why bother lubricating these if you can just get the JWK Silent Linear switches and leave them dry, I do have an answer for you; bottoming out. When typing on a dampened switch, you can tell when you bottom out that it is not a plastic-on-plastic collision but plastic-on-rubber. Personally, I do not mind that feeling and I can believe plenty of people would get used to it with time anyway, but if you want to feel the strike as you press the keys, then lubricating these switches will be the better experience. Also I know I was noticing spring noise with those switches and I am not noticing them here. Some of that might be luck but some of it might also be these switches, even lubricated, still make enough noise for the spring noise to be covered up.
Lubricating switches does take time and effort, and the additional supply of lubricant and brushes, but it can have a significant impact. I am happy I have lubricated these even if I probably would have been content with them as they were. The JWK Silent Linear switches, however, I do want to work on because of the previously mentioned spring noise. With how quiet those were from the start and the impact lubrication had on these, I am very interested in seeing how much closer to being truly silent I can get them. It will be a more involved process as I will be lubricating the springs as well as
