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BSUN Jade Rosales Switch
The Jade Rosales switch project was established in May 2023, so saying it took one year to develop is actually inaccurate. It literally took more than a year to bring this switch to life. One might ask why making one single linear switch takes this much time as we see new switches coming out daily these days. Well, there are two ways to make a switch basically; The first way is like building your favorite Chipotle bowl: You pick the switch type and manufacturer, figure out what materials, leafs, springs, and molds they provide, and you choose the options that sound right to you. The second way is more difficult: Instead of building a Chipotle bowl, you build a farm first and grow the gradients you'd like to go with. What this means is that the designer needs to figure out what they want the switch to be like to start with; if the ready-made molds, materials, and springs could fulfill the needs, you are good. If not, everything will need to be created from scratch. This is almost the case with the Jade Rosales switches.
Price
0.55USD per switch
Switch Specifications
Switch type: Linear
Designer: XY Studio
Manufacturer: BSUN
Stem material: Y3X
Top Housings: Modified PC
Bottom Housing: Milky thickened housing with glue injected
Operating Force: 45±5g
Bottom-out Force: 55±5g
Pre-travel: 2.0mm±0.3mm
Total Travel: 3.5±0.3mm
Spring: 20.5mm KOS Single-Stage extended spring nickel-plated
Factory Lubed: Yes! on spring, stem feet, and stem sliders
The Process
Jade Rosales switches are made to be smooth, deep-sounding, reliable, and pretty
Materials:
Nowadays, switches are made with materials with weird names: LY, Y3, P3, etc... But no worries, I will always be here to break them down for you
Y3X stem: BSUN's Y3 and Y3X materials are basically UHMWPE blends. Quoting XY's words:" Y3X is the most advanced blend of UHMWPE, and it is way better than Y3". So to be short, the Y3X material is mainly UHMWPE with adjusted polyethylene content and other secret materials added. After the modifying process, Y3X has better toughness, lower surface friction coefficient, higher impact strength, and better anti-erosiveness than both pure UHMWPE and Y3 blend.
Customized milky top housing: During the early stages of development, PA66 was chosen for the top housing as we wanted a smooth and reliable material to pair with the Y3X stem. However, after rounds of sampling, we realized that no matter how hard we tried to adjust the molds or even trying to modify the PA66 material, it was simply not that great. We then turned to a modified PC and customized the mold set so it worked perfectly with the Y3X stem. The top housing now is mainly made of PC with other additional materials added to change the smoothness and sound signature a bit. We also added glitters to it!
Customized milky bottom housing: The bottom housing is the tricky part here. We told BSUN's engineers that we need a bottom housing that both sounds and feels solid, concentrated and comes with no crap sound. They recommended a thickened bottom housing with glue injected, and it seriously got the job done. The problem is we are not sure what the bottom housing is made of as BSUN is trying to keep a secret about it. Based on some random pairing and tests we did and the material cost of the bottom housing, we guessed that they are made of high-purity POK. Keep in mind, this is just a guess!
Mold:
Mold sets of the stem and housing are all customized. Due to the shrinkage nature of UHMWPE during injection molding, we specially ordered a new customized mold for the stems. The specs were fine-tuned to avoid the stem either being too small or too large. You don't need to worry about having loose keycaps on them or having a hard time putting keycaps on. The precise tuning also ensured the Y3X stem's smoothness was amplified while stem wobble was very minimal.
The top housing mold was customized to work with the stem's size to ensure smooth travel and minimum stem wobble.
The bottom housing mold had to be customized because we had it thickened and comes with glue injection. Another issue we solved was big butt bottom housing; There have been complaints about BSUN switches' bottom housing being too big that it becomes very difficult to sit them on the plate. We re-sized the bottom housing to make it easier to hot-swap but won't be loose fitting. The stem rails are also accurately molded so each keystroke is smooth and steady. You won't hear much crap sound coming out either.
Hardware:
Leaf spring selection and tuning is usually a section that most switch designs ignore, but it is very crucial. We chose to go with a palladium gold alloy leaf for the Jade Rosales switches as they are super durable, anti-erosive, and wear-resistant. We adjusted the leaf angle so it fits perfectly with the stem design to avoid leaf noise.
The spring we chose is 20.5mm and nickel-plated. The nickel plate increases its durability, and the weight is also super nice. They feel snappy and won't tire your fingers.
Factory Lube:
We were very lucky that BSUN imported a whole new line of lubing machines during the late development stage. The spring is coated with dry film lube to eliminate spring crunch; We spent a lot of time adjusting the spot and the amount of lube used on the spring to avoid the lube pooling problem. After numerous tests, it is very confident to say that we probably won't see a lube pooling issue on these switches at all.
As for the lube used for the stem and rails, industrial resin oil was added to the formula to increase its smoothness while retaining the viscosity. Stem legs, stem sides, and rails are precisely lubed using brand-new lubing machines.
QC:
Unlike usual, XY Studio didn't go with the traditional QC process in which QC only happens after the production is done. During the first two months of production, QC was carried out throughout the process.
Around 200K switches were discarded during the test run due to they were substandard. This is also why the production stage took so long. It was another two months of tuning and production going at the same time. Only until recently, did everything finally seem right, and the official production was finally started.
Final:
The BSUN Jade Rosales switch is probably the most hardcore switch I have ever seen. It is by far the switch that took the longest time to design and develop, and it is also the first switch that the designer basically asked the manufacturer to re-do everything they have in hand. But let's cut the crap, as long as you guys like it and enjoy typing them, all the effort is worth.
Form of Sales
Time of Sales
July 20th
