Straight up one of my favourite switches I’ve ever bought, and one of my favourite switches that I can go to at almost any day and find myself really happy with whatever I’m typing with. It’s a switch that gets a great sound from it, and paired with any board, no matter how stiff or bouncy, I get really giddy with joy typing with it.
Produced by ThicThock, the Marshmallow switch is exactly what it’s name suggests, its supposed to feel like you’re typing on marshmallows. That means that it’s kinda soft as you press down, but yet some what of a cushioning appears. This comes simply from the Progressive springs that ThicThock produces themselves.
Their spring title is equally impressive, the Magically Progressive 68G springs. The 68G stands for 68grams of weight that is needed to bottom out the spring – bottom out meaning to completely compress the spring down. Usually there are two numbers, the actuation weight – the weight in which the mechanical switch leaf makes contact and actuates a keystroke or keypress; and the other number, which is the bottom out weight.
Most of the time, these weights mean nothing until you start experimenting. If you notice that you accidentally press letters too much, it means that you probably are having switches that are too light for your preference. If you type in a way that you get tired of quite fast, then your switches might be too heavy for you. These things will only be known after testing, or trying out a range of boards.
In any case, the Marshmallows are slightly on the heavy half of spring weights. The middle ground stands at about 62-64G of weight, and there are a number of switches within this weight range.
There are other kinds of switches that one could experiment with, and these switches fall into the range called Linears, meaning it goes straight down without a tactile bump. Tactile bumps within a keypress give you a Tactile Switch, which means you are usually feeling the actuation close by. The last one is a clicky switch, meaning there is a mechanism that gives an immediate feedback when a switch is activated. This comes in two main parts: click jackets, or click bars.
These are all Cherry MX Style switches of course, and maybe tomorrow or on another day when I’m rushing for a post, I’ll write about this in greater detail.
Anyway, I typed this whole post on my Marshmallow switches. And they will probably stay in this board for a much longer time that they had before.