Keyboard Switches Are Not Going to Crack Your Keycaps

Have you ever stumbled into the help channels of places like r/mechanicalkeyboards or any of the hundreds of keyboard Discords out there and just become confused? While I’m sure some newer enthusiasts can sympathize with this because of the sheer number of different things people can and will ask about, I’m talking about confusion that arises from the utter specificity of what some of these people are asking about. For example, imagine coming across a question about how to best clean a keyboard dropped into a pot of mashed potatoes. Despite cleaning keyboards with water or iced coffee spilled on them and coming across fairly mundanely, dropping a keyboard into mashed potatoes is such an oddly specific situation that basically nobody will ever experience. It really does make you wonder what happened to make that person ask that question and/or be concerned about how to deal with that particular situation. It is somewhat editorially convenient of me to structure my confusion in this fashion as I, myself, have a “mashed potatoes” question about keyboards that confused me for a very long time after having joined the hobby: “Will these switches crack those keycaps?” Why are so many people sincerely concerned about their choice in switches cracking the stems of their keycaps on their builds?

As long as I’ve been a part of this community, I recall having seen these questions revolving around switches breaking keycap stems get answered with advice that generally focused on avoiding Kailh’s ‘Box’ style switches altogether. This specific style of switches from this specific manufacturer was the problem. At the time, I thought this was a bit odd as some of the very first switches I ever put into a keyboard were Kailh’s Box Jades, and I didn’t have this problem one bit. Even my first switch tester with a dozen different Box style switches on them didn’t arrive with cracked keycaps either. As time progressed, I noticed the responses to these concerns widening, moving on from just Kailh’s Box switches to that of all Box or dustproof stems from any manufacturers – anything other than a traditional MX cross was effectively ‘deadly.’ Since this claim seemed to balloon outwards from something super specific to really wide and vague over the years, I was sure that there had to be some singular ‘mashed potato’ event that started all of this, and it turns out that I was actually right.

As I discovered and documented in 2023, the singular instance that started fears of Kailh’s Box switches cracking keycap stems came from a single batch of Box style switches that Novelkeys purchased from Kailh that were slightly over the originally agreed-upon tolerances. As documented in Reddit posts by both Mike from Novelkeys and Kailh at the time, a batch of Box switches had been received that had mounting posts that were 1.32 mm wide as opposed to their agreed-upon target spec of 1.30 mm. In turn, Kailh acknowledged their mistake, re-produced another batch that was within target, and moved on from it. Novelkeys simply got rid of their defective stock. From that batch forward, I could not find a single known, sustained issue of switches from any batch or manufacturer causing widespread keycap cracking issues. The singular ‘mashed potatoes’ incident of Kailh making one batch of switches just a tad bit too wide has led to all of these questions, fears, and concerns in the 6+ years since.

While the fear around mounting any and all keycaps on Kailh’s Box switches is virtually unfounded in this day and age, every now and then, you will in fact see a rare instance where someone puts keycap ‘A’ on switch ‘B’ and causes a crack in their stems. Even though I am fully dismissive of this broader claim being true, I don’t want to dismiss the fact that anomalous anecdotes can and do happen. However, there are things you could do to try and help mitigate your chances of ending up like these few unlucky individuals. First and foremost, you should always consider buying high-quality keycaps from reputable sources rather than just the cheapest ones possible. You can complain all you want about the prices of GMK keycaps that “look just like these $10 AliExpress keycaps”, but I promise you that those cheap keycaps are priced that low because they are made just that cheaply. Secondly, if you’re concerned about a particular combination of switches and keycaps, you can always just test them out ahead of time using extra unused keys from your kit. If you’ve got an extra ‘B’ key, a set of scooped/barred F/J keys you won't use, or an odd-colored pipe key, consider testing these out on your build before committing home row to the board. If you find this fit a bit tight, you can also steal a page from the artisan keycap community’s playbook and warm your keycaps up a bit in warm water to help ‘soften’ them up before mounting to reduce cracking odds. In addition to simply applying caution in any and all of the above situations, employing any of these tips should put your mind further at ease about any unfounded fears of certain stems potentially breaking your keycaps. However, if you’re a bit more of the data-driven type and/or just a bit more skeptical of my claims than most people, there is one step further you can take all of this.

When I learned about the true origin story behind everyone’s lingering fear of mounting keycaps onto Box switches, I wasn’t satisfied with just believing the tales as they were. I wanted to see if these concerns were even remotely realistic using numbers and data. As part of my original documentation project detailing the small story behind all of the fear, I also went out and measured the keycap mounting posts of numerous switches to compare those measurements to both Cherry’s and GMK’s keycap specifications to see if there were any potential problematic matchups between the two. As of today, I’ve measured over 500 different switches via this same methodology and ultimately found that less than 2% of switches seemingly pose any risk at all of maybe cracking keycaps that match the specs of either Cherry or GMK. There’s no brand, no type of switch, nor any sort of connecting throughline between any of these potentially problematic pairings that could point to any trend that’s actually a realistic concern. The data even shows that Kailh’s recent Box switches shouldn’t be a problem at all! If you don’t believe me in the slightest about all of this data, or you just want to pore through it all and do some calculations for yourself, consider checking out my freely available dataset titled the ‘Artisan Addendum’ linked here.

It is a bit astounding to me just how well the mechanical keyboard community at large seems to hold onto its drama, misconceptions, and general ‘advice’ over the years, no matter how incorrect it may be. One singular batch of switches from almost 6 years ago caused such a large stir of fear and concerns that people who are joining the hobby today even hear advice based on the outcome of it. If you’ve joined the hobby at any point since this one-off defective batch was discovered in 2018, know that it’s pretty safe now. There’s generally no reason to be concerned about switches cracking the stems of your keycaps! Speaking of some things that the average keyboard enthusiast might be a bit misguided about, consider checking out some of my other articles on Kinetic Labs, such as ‘What Some Switch Marketing Terms Really Mean’ or ‘Dispelling A Few Keyboard Switch Myths.’