After colorful ones, Chosfox announced transparent hotswap sockets.
KBD.news Published June 11, 2022
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Just wrote about Durock's vivid hotswap sockets and Chosfox announces transparent ones the same day:
Heard you guys like transparent keyboards… – chosfoxmk.
Product page at the end of the post but it's worth to read the write-up, I promise. ;)
Rated for 500 hotswap cycles ("Plug and pull life up to 500 times") this one is somewhere between the classic Kailh and colorful Durock sockets (100) and the gen 2 Kailh ones (6,000).
According to the description, these sockets have "aircraft-grade contact heads", and the interior is gold-plated to improve oxidation resistance.
I reached out to Robin and he was kind enough to answer my questions so here is some more info for ya:
Chosfox has sold Kailh's color hotswap sockets for a while but wanted to make a transparent one so they asked a manufacturer to make some.
They prefer not to disclose the name of their partner at the moment because the product is "not in mass production yet" – which doesn't mean this is a limited first batch but they are only getting a few batches of 2,000 sockets at once.
Transparent hotswap sockets by Chosfox
We wanted to make this transparent hotswap as we want to make a transparent keyboard one day, this is our baby step – Robin.
The description on the product page stresses that the melting point of the housing material is 250°C / 480°F and you are asked to keep this in mind when soldering.
That's because the material used for the housing is different than that of other common sockets on the market – which by the way are prone to melting too, at least in my experience.