a stuck key on my board turned out to be the switch, not the keycap

Spent 20 min yesterday blaming the keycap on my E key. lowkey pulled it, cleaned the stem, still mushy and sometimes didnt register. Turned out the switch itself was the problem. Leaf spring was a little bent from a lube job i did months ago and forgot about Swapped in a spare and it's fine now. Hot-swap sockets keep paying for themselves lowkey so before anyone tells you to buy a new keyboard, try this Pull the cap first. If it's still bad, pull the switch and put in one from a key you never use. scroll lock is good for that, nobody has pressed scroll lock since 2003 If the problem moves with the switch, it's the switch. If it doesnt, it's probably the socket or the PCB, and that's a different headache. Also that video going around saying you can fix chatter by spraying contact cleaner into the board while it's plugged in? please dont. at least unplug it lol

Anyone else had a lube job come back to bite them months later?

lol the "lube job i did months ago and forgot about" part hits way too close to home... i've got a half-lubed set of linears sitting in a tupperware on my desk right now and i honestly can't remember which ones i finished!! one of these days i'll learn to label stuff. probably not though

also big yes on hot-swap. mine's saved me twice already i stole the switch from my scroll lock key, which i'm pretty sure i've pressed zero times ever... btw the first time i tried pulling a switch i used the wrong tool and almost cracked the housing, so go slow!

Spent 20 min yesterday blaming the keycap on my E key. lowkey pulled it, cleaned teh stem, still mushy and sometimes didnt register. Turned out the switch itself was the problem. Leaf spring was a little bent from a lube job i did months ago and forgot about Swapped in a spare and it's fine now. Hot...

the spring got you, not the keycap. thats exactly why i dont trust anything with more moving parts than a mainspring... at least when my watch acts up i know its me forgetting to wind it

the spring got you, not the keycap.

lol yeah that post got cut off. it was the switch. one of the pins was bent and only half seated in the hotswap socket, so it registered whenever it felt like it. straightened it with tweezers, reseated it, fixed. also lubed it while i had it open since the mush was bugging me https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/

so check your pins before you blame the keycap lol

haha bent pins get everyone eventually!! one of mine was bent so bad i snapped the leg right off trying to fix it... i keep a little magnetic dish for spare switches now. i keep forgetting where i put the dish though lol

sidenote, i'm typing this while waiting for clear skies tonight there's a decent chance of catching the Draconids next week and they're one of the few meteor showers that are best right after dusk, not at 4am!! lowkey anyway check your sockets too, sometimes the hotswap socket itself gets loose learned that one the hard way

...saying you can fix chatter by...

lol the leaf spring is always the culprit and nobody suspects it i had a switch go mushy once and spent an embarrassing amount of time blaming a crumb of my roommate's granola honestly did you swap the switch or just bend the spring back and hope for the best

lol the leaf spring is always the culprit and nobody suspects it i had a switch go mushy once and spent an embarrassing amount of time blaming a crumb of my roommate's granola honestly did you swap the switch or just bend the spring back and hope for the best.

lol the leaf spring is SO sneaky 😭 had one double typing on me for weeks and i was ready to throw the whole board out the window. ended up just bending it back a tiny bit with tweezers and it was fine but now im paranoid every time a key feels off 🚀

...did months ago and forgot about Swapped in a spare...

omg the leaf spring betrayal 😭 nothing worse than a mushy E key mid game!! did you swap the switch or are you just gonna live with it?? if its hotswap just steal one from a key you never use lol, i grabbed mine from scroll lock and havent missed it once 🚀

...worse than a mushy E key mid game!! did you swap...

yeah thats what you get with keyboards that have parts that wear out. my watch has been ticking since 1987 and ive never once had to swap in a spare anything just wind it every morning

well I'm not so sure keyboards are worse because they have parts that wear out my old Cavitron scaler at the office had parts that wore out too and we just replaced the inserts and kept going for years!! that's sort of the nice thing about these switch boards from what Tyler tells me... he showed me at Thanksgiving how you pull one right out with a little tool and pop a new one in, no soldering or anything... I thought that was pretty clever honestly lol... still, a watch ticking since 1987 is impressive, I'll give you that... mine needs a new battery about every time I turn around... just my two cents!!

anyway glad you figured out it was the switch and not the keycap... I'd have bet money on a crumb under there, because half the stuck keys I've ever had were from eating toast at the computer lol I was going to clean mine tonight but there's a Dateline on about a man who poisoned his wife's iced tea so the keyboard can wait!! Just my two cents!!

...just bend the spring back and hope for the best

lol wait the leaf spring?? i always just blame dust and blast it with compressed air like a caveman... i swear i have a half-lubed board sitting under a pile of star charts right now because i got distracted halfway through!! which switch was it, the one that went mushy?

yeah the mushy one, my F key. funny thing is the mush wasnt even the bent pin. that was dry rails plus a spring that pinged a bit, so it was two separate problems in the same switch. compressed air is fine for crumbs but it cant fix a leaf that got bent out of shape. if a key chatters or double types, check the leaf with a flashlight before you blame dust. and finish that board lol, half lubed means every other key feels different and you'll notice it forever https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=switch+leaf+spring+chatter+fix

well I dont know a thing about keyboard switches but I had to look up what a leaf spring even was... honestly sounds like a fiddly little part!! twenty minutes isnt bad though, my grandson Tyler went two whole days blaming his mouse before he figured out the batteries were dead the plain answer is usually the right one!! Just my two cents!!

the spring got you, not the keycap. thats exactly why i dont trust anything with more moving parts than a mainspring... at least when my watch acts up i know its me forgetting to wind it

ohhh i bet it turned out to be the switch itself... my grandson Tyler had the exact same thing happen with his fancy clicky keyboard, he took the whole cap off and everything and it was the switch the whole time lol... you're halfway there with the stem cleaning tho!! Just my two cents!!