Submitted by Miiyoo t3_10m3i05 in MechanicalKeyboards
-- TLDR --
Halo stems are fatter than they were before, so no, you can't make Holy Bobas anymore unless you shave each stem by hand. Which is what I'm doing. :')
-- Glossary --
OGHalo = old halo stems
NHalo = any stems bought recently
If you have polia stems, use Polia interchangeably with Halo.
-- Intro --
So it all started when I decided that I wanted to put some Bykos in my new keeb. (BobaU4T tops, Halo stems, Zealio bottoms). I had a couple of old Halo stems (OGHalo) from ages ago when I decided to build some Holy Pandas, but not enough so I bought 90 new switches from Drop (NHalo). My old stems all fit in the boba housings perfectly. But my new Halo stems all were too fat and had a friction fit. Interesting. I also tried ordering a batch of Polia stems and they were also too big to move properly in the boba housings.
-- What's going on here? --
I perused some old posts, and it seems like people that had been trying to make Holy Bobas were having the same issue.
-- Is it now impossible to make Holy Bobas? --
Well. I decided to whip out the ol' caliper and see what was going on here.
So here in this image, we have two Halo stems. OGHalo is marked with black sharpie, and NHalo is clean.
OGHalo is marked with black sharpie, and NHalo is clean.
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The front to back was within 0.5 thousandths of an inch. That's an acceptable deviation range for cheap calipers imo. OG Halo measured in at 0.2170 in, and the NHalos at 0.2175.
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Things become weird when we start measuring the side-to-side width. We see a still small, but no longer acceptable deviation range. 1.5 thousandths of an inch!! That doesn't seem like a lot, but within the scale of a switch, that's quite a bit.
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So there's no way that all of the new stems are too fat right?
Well. I measured 20 of them. All of them were around 0.2850, some even hitting 0.2855, but again, that's an acceptable deviation range here. So. I came to the conclusion that maybe Halos are now made in a slightly different mold from before, and no longer really fit in boba housings.
The Boba Housings themselves have an interior size of 0.2855. So theoretically the stems would fit? Well. No. Once the tolerances are that tight, there's just no room for things to actually move smoothly. Not to mention, my calipers might have been digging into the housing plastic.
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BobaU4T top housing interior measurement
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Also, if we look at the NHalos, we can even visibly see a difference in the side "bolsters" pictured here.
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The thing is. These bolsters exist on the OGHalos too. They're just about 0.5 thousandths of an inch smaller. Well shit.
-- So I guess we just can't make holy bobas anymore? --
Welllllllllll. That wasn't going to stop me. So I padded my pliers with some cork to hold the stem shape a bit better and went to town with my Xacto knife. Surprisingly after a bit of practice, getting a consistent side-to-side measurement of 0.2830 - 0.2825 was fairly achievable.
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So no, I'm not going to give up. Is it worth it? Most likely not. But hey, I'm just going to take it one stem at a time, do a few a day and I'll be done in a couple of months right? Copium HAHAH.
darknessblades t1_j60rhch wrote
Why not measure with metric in mm?
it should be a lot more accurate. since calipers will round Inches down or up depending on the size.