Why I still swear by my mechanical keyboard
A dead switch made the answer obvious.
A key on my keyboard died today. Fortunately, repairing it took all of 10 minutes, and most of that was trying to remember where I'd kept the spares.
This afternoon, a key on one of my work keyboards simply stopped working. No warning at all. One moment it was fine, the next, the "f" key just refused to register.
Diagnosing the dead key
After unplugging the keyboard a few times, switching apps, and testing the other keys, I reached my conclusion: the key switch was a goner.
But didn't I have spares? A quick search later, I found the spare switches I'd always thought I would never need. After all, aren't they rated to 50 million presses each? Then again, I've been using my Moonlander keyboard for close to five years now, so perhaps the odds had finally caught up with me.
A two-minute swap
The fix itself was almost anticlimactic. It took only a couple of minutes to remove my custom keycaps, pry out the replaceable switch, and pop in the new one. It promptly worked. Phew.
Other than the nice clickety sound, this is exactly why I love my mechanical keyboards, and why I consider them a worthwhile investment. When a component fails, you replace that component rather than the whole device.
And yes, once I looked at the photos, I realised it's probably time to give the keyboard a thorough brush, and my keycaps another soak. So do you use a mechanical keyboard yourself, and would you repair it or replace it?
