Gateron Oil King Pre Lubed 5pin Switches 55g Linear Mechanical Keyboard Custom Switch (90 pcs)

Product Information

Beyond the most notable change in housing collision pitch and volume, the switches don’t appear to change much beyond 17,000 actuations, save for the small increase in both N/S and E/W direction stem wobble that is certainly deserving of a notice at this point. 51,000 Actuations Seemingly born from nearly identical molds as the Cream family releases from 2022, these Cream+ switches have a minor amount of N/S and E/W stem wobble that is cross batch consistent and likely to bother very few, though still with much room to improve. Sound

Like most other switches, I do think there may be some increase in stem wobble in the UHMknown switches at 17,000 actuations, but if there is it is so minor as to make it hard to decide either way. 34,000 ActuationsDisregarding the insert, the Novelkeys Cream+ switches are about as average as they come: fairly smooth with some small grain scratch issues and overall firm and slightly unbalanced housing collisions. The titanium insert, however, provides a strong, flat, metallic clap at the end of the downstroke that makes itself the center of attention of the switch while not detracting from the other performance characteristics. Wobble

Copper Inserts: I’m not entirely certain as to how this only showed up at 51,000 actuations, but the Cream+ switches with copper inserts almost appear to have a more amplified scratch and spring ping sound than either of the other inserts. I’m almost suspecting that this may be a batch-specific issue as the copper inserts didn’t have really any other points of note about them at other break-in times.Without the copper insert, the Novelkeys Cream+ switches are par for course in terms of modern linear switches – minor small grain scratch but overall smoothness and relatively firm housing collisions that are minorly unbalanced. However, the copper insert produces a firmer bottoming that is closer to nylon than POM while maintaining subtle metallic undertones that emphasize the unique nature of the bottoming out here. Wobble Even though the Novelkeys Dream Cream switches were altogether completely void of innovation within the switch itself, it’s hard to overlook the steps that were taken here as anything but innovative. Sure, manufacturers are more than on board with making changes to existing production processes such as molds, lubrication lines, etc, though the fact that they convinced Kailh to implement an entire extra step in their production process is, as far as I am aware, an absolute first for the community. What should even further drive home the importance of this step by Novelkeys and Kailh is that since this design improvement isn’t intrinsic to the switch itself, it could easily be implemented for future switch releases in the same way that ‘new and improved lubing’ continues to sell switches even to this day. The stem wobble, and especially that in the N/S direction is better in the Oil Kings than the 8008 Ink switches, which really stands to highlight the mold and design-based improvements that Gateron has made in the past few years.