I finally tried lubing switches with a different grease and it went weird

I was building a 65% board last week and ran out of my usual Krytox 205g0. All I had left was some Super Lube multi-purpose synthetic grease from a hardware store trip. I figured, grease is grease, right? Wrong. I lubed about 30 Gateron Yellow switches with it. The feel was okay at first, but after a day of typing, they got this weird, almost sticky slow return. It wasn't scratchy, just... mushy and sluggish. I had to desolder the whole thing and start over with the proper stuff. Learned that not all greases are made for the tiny springs and stems in these switches. Has anyone else had a bad result from using a non-keyboard specific lubricant?

3 comments

3 Comments

phoenixh742mo ago

Ugh, that sounds like a mess. I tried using some basic white lithium grease on a project once and it gummed up everything. Some lubes just don't play nice with small plastic parts.

skylerg171mo agoMost Upvoted

Heard a podcast a while back where some guy was rebuilding old Nintendo consoles and he ran into the exact same thing. @finley_lopez98 talked about how even the right grease can be wrong if you use too much of it. Like with those small plastic gears inside window motors or controllers, the lube needs to be super thin and not degrade the plastic over time. White lithium is great for metal on metal but it turns into a sticky mess on nylon and other plastics. There's this synthetic PTFE lube that's supposed to be good for that kind of stuff, almost like a dry film when it sets. But honestly I just use silicone grease on anything plastic now and haven't had problems.

finley_lopez982mo ago

My old car taught me this lesson with its window motor. Like phoenixh74 found out, the wrong grease just makes things fight themselves. It's a small detail that ruins the whole feel.