Hot take: The Keycon meetup actually made me hate hotswap sockets

I went to Keycon 2024 in Austin last month and watched three builds go bad during the soldering-free session. Two boards had socket pop off the PCB, and one guy's JST connector just ripped clean out. I used to think hotswap was the future, but seeing that many failures in one afternoon made me go back to soldered builds. Has anyone else had a bad experience with a specific socket brand like Kailh or Mill-Max?

2 comments

2 Comments

taylor.mary24d ago

You ever think maybe the JST rip was just bad cable management though? People get too hype during meetups and yank stuff without checking how it's routed first.

jessicaw5424d ago

Three bad builds in one afternoon isn't really that big of a deal when you think about how many people were probably there trying hotswap for the first time... I've seen way more soldered builds get messed up at similar events, like bridges and cold joints everywhere. Those JST connectors can be finicky sure but that's more about the builder being rough than the actual socket technology. And honestly the Kailh sockets hold up fine in my experience, just gotta make sure your PCB is compatible and you're not trying to rip switches out sideways. Seems like people just need to slow down and be more careful, not throw the whole concept away.