C³ Equalz Tangerines: Why did they lube them?
This is a brief on the Tangerine Linear Switches.
Everything but Conclusion
As promised in my last post, I’m not writing about long pole linears for a while. This is a brief writeup on the C³Equalz Tangerines. Owing to the popularity of these switches and an abundance of information available online, I’m keeping this writeup length to the bare minimum possible. I also pray for forgiveness in the poor media quality as I’m writing this from a remote location without my usual tools and just a mobile network to rely upon.
The Tangerines are designed by C³Equalz and manufactured by JWK. These come in two variants the difference being the spring weights (62 and 67g), and the stem colors (light and dark green). I’ve the 67g (dark green) version for this writeup.
The top and bottom housing are made up of UHMWPE material and the stem out of POM. The spring is a gold plated 14.5mm regular version. The stem is also of regular length thus enabling a full 4mm of travel. The translucent carrot colored housing interferes with the LEDs thereby tinting the color of the LED towards reddish orange.
These switches come prelubed and I observed the lube on stems and a little on the leaves as well. The lube is so inconsistent that two switches from the same batch sound and feel vastly different. There is more lube on some and almost none on others. The stem wobble is almost nil in all directions and the housing is moderately tight enough to allow filming.
The stock switch press is very smooth (again, JWK at the top of its game). The sound is characteristic of a POM stem hitting the UHMWPE housing. Not too clacky nor thocky. There is considerable spring ping which is again an unworthy trend with JWK switches. The stock (inconsistent) ones with almost no lubing sounded harsh and a tad scratchy. I removed all the lube (a pain) and lubed them with Tribosys 3204, this made them sound consistent and the push feel was arguably the smoothest I’ve experienced so far. Below is a sound test of the Tangerines lubed with Tribosys 3204, spring swapped with 16mm Korean stainless steel springs.
Conclusion
C3 Equalz had a great opportunity to come up with a perfect stock smooth regular linear switch. They and JWK had done all the hard work by producing the smoothest (well almost) switch only to ruin it by inconsistent lubing. If only the springs had some lube and the housing none, then this would have been a no-brainer for someone looking for smooth linears.
On a positive note, all is not lost though. Cleaning the lube, relubing, and spring swapping brings out the much needed consistency and smoothness, rendering them perfectly usable.
Thanks for reading till here. This will be the last writeup of 2021. New year wishes to all.