Taiwan Jet Axis Switch Review

Officially, as of the time of posting this, I’ll have just over a week left of freedom until my graduate studies start and honestly, I’m unsure how to feel about it all. While on one hand I’m glad to finally get back to doing something normal and productive rather than just pacing in the dark and muttering to myself about switches, I’m also unsure of what to do with the remaining days of freedom. Unlike traditional undergraduate studies, graduate schools often do not have breaks and ones which have lab-heavy research components such as my field in Chemical Engineering often have graduate students working on weekends as well, truly limiting the mythical concept of “free time”. Even though I personally like this level of work, it does really make you realize all of the loose time you should have spent doing horridly irresponsible, memorable, or noteworthy things with. Maybe I’ll just get a nice burger sometime next week and call it all even since I’ve done basically nothing since graduation.

Figure 1: Supposedly this is from somewhere within Minneapolis, and I’m dying to figure out where. — **Figure 1:** *Supposedly* this is from somewhere within Minneapolis, and I’m dying to figure out where.

All of these thoughts about personal life bucket list items, though, really did have me thinking about what to write for a review this week and made me ponder on all of the articles I have written about thus far. While I’ve done plenty of fresh reviews, reviews of older modern stuff, and even alternative articles about switches and the collection, one profoundly lacking thing on my website and within my content is vintage switches. Now to attest to that a bit, one of the reasons that I’ve not really touched on vintage much if at all is simply because I don’t have nearly as strong of a grasp on vintage switches from a collection sense as well as a subject understanding sense. Even with a nearly complete Alps SKCL/SKCM collection, I really would love to have a better grasp on the alphabet soup of Alps variants, and a wider spectrum of the Hi-Tek 725 (Space Invader) rainbow before I delve into deep discussions of those. That being said, though, with a recent package from my lovely sponsor Matt of Mechbox.co.uk, what I do have now is a (nearly) complete set of Taiwan Jet Axis switches, which are still kind of ‘modern MX’-y, and yet still vintage. So, in order to both put a more cohesive set of documentation out there than currently exists for Taiwan Jet Axis switches, as well as to take my first foray into vintage switches on this website, I bring you this article here today! It was either that or I wallow in a sort of age-related crisis realizing that I’m 23 and the world is moving too fast around for me to keep up with, so hopefully I chose correctly.

Switch Background

Taiwan Jet Axis switches, also sometimes abbreviated as TJ or JA on other websites, are described by many to be a vintage “clone” of the one and only Cherry MX style switches. However, before we begin to build that textual momentum that helps bind together your introductory paragraph and really hook in the readers, I do take issue with the common parlance of “clone” in this instance. Clones of Cherry MX style switches, to me, include things like Gateron, Outemu, and some of the more fun off-brand variant switches from the 2014-2016 era such as Batknight Greens. These switches are all almost entirely based on the original design of Cherry MX switches and feature the same nuances in their functionality, operation, and general design scheme as their predecessors before them, which makes them fitting of the term “clone” to me. Taiwan Jet Axis switches, however, are hardly clones at anything other than a surface level comparison between them and Cherry MX switches of the time.

Figure 2: One of these things is not like the other… — **Figure 2:** One of these things is not like the other…

Looking first to that surface level comparison that everyone is immediately drawn to, the reason that Taiwan Jet Axis switches are often referred to as clones comes from their most prominent feature in MX-mount stems. In fact, they’re so similar that you can even use GMK keycaps with Taiwan Jet Axis switches without issue, and there have been a couple of people who have used them in modern, custom keyboard builds. In addition to their similarity in keycap mounts, one of the more subtle aspects that may have been missed in this previous statement is that they also share the same pin out as MX style switches and can be used in most modern, non-hotswap PCBs. Past these two rather interesting points, while the similarities begin to waver ever so slightly at the surface level between these switches and Cherry MX style switches, the internal design mechanism alone is why I hesitate to use the word ‘clone’ with Jet Axes.

Figure 3: Taiwan Jet Axes with and without keycap in a prototype Spacey PCB from VanillaKeyboards. — **Figure 3:** Taiwan Jet Axes with and without keycap in a prototype Spacey PCB from VanillaKeyboards.

To the great enjoyment of the few Alps enthusiasts among my audience who are completely lost at this point wondering where my mentions of them are in the last 50 documents, the internal design of the Taiwan Jet Axes are surprisingly much more in line with Alps SKCL/SKCM leaves than that of Cherry MX switches. Rather than featuring the bent leaf iconic of MX switch of the era, these feature the much more prevalent straight-leaf system as well as a tactile leaf mechanism very similar to Alps tactile switches of the time, as can be seen below. Funny enough, this straight-leaf style was so common to the era that the former Cherry VP of Engineering, Günter Murmann, once noted how MX-style clones historically could not replicate the folded leaf design that Cherry held tightly onto before the patent expired. Beyond this difference in leaf design as well, the stems are also quite different than traditional MX-style stems. Rather than having a set of positive slider rails on the stems that are guided by a matching negative set in the bottom housing, the stems in the Taiwan Jet Axis feature two negative holes in either side of the stem that are guided by positive rails attached to the top housing, further distinguishing their design from Cherry MX switches and their associated clones.

Figure 4: Taiwan Jet Axis switch component disassembly photo from Deskthority. (Credit to alps.tw for the photograph and effort.) — **Figure 4:** Taiwan Jet Axis switch component disassembly photo from Deskthority. (Credit to alps.tw for the photograph and effort.)

So, with all of the finer details laid bare about the Taiwan Jet Axis switches, the question is obviously raised about the bigger picture history of them. Unfortunately, however, there really isn’t all that much known about these switches. Only a few different keyboards have been documented as containing these switches, including Dah Yang K-156, K-250, and Mitac 101 keyboards, all of which were produced in a vague part of the 1990s. Not even the manufacturer of these switches is known, with the only person I could possibly imagine would know this information vaguely guessing they might from a company known as MULTIVIC or Multivictor Technology, which rings no bells to me personally. Of the boards that the Taiwan Jet Axis switches have been documented in, the only noted colors include several shades of Yellow, a White/Clear, and Black variant, with only the White coming in a clicky/tactile variant while the rest are linear. However, one of the biggest reasons I decided to write up this article is because I have documentation of quite a few other colors not demonstrated elsewhere.

Figure 5: All known color variants of Taiwan Jet Axis switches as of time of publishing. — **Figure 5:** All known color variants of Taiwan Jet Axis switches as of time of publishing.

In addition to the traditional Black, Yellow, White, and Clear variants, as can be seen above, Taiwan Jet Axis switches also exist in Blue, Brown, and Red colors as well. Of those, the Jet Axis Blues are the only Jet Axes to feature a milky housing, whereas all other known variants feature entirely black, opaque top and bottom housings. Aside simple board to board variation, though, Taiwan Jet Axes also have a couple of more layers of complexity with respect to their color scheme. Within the various boards documented, there is a wide variation in color saturation and hue between switches, with one example from Deskthority having adjacent switches range from a dark “piss” yellow color to a very light “hydrated piss” yellow color. As well, this also holds true in non-yellow colored Jet Axis boards as the Brown and Red switches that I have were all reported to be harvested from the same board, with there being a range of colors between the two soldered within it.

Figure 6: Variation in Yellow Jet Axes soldered within board. (Photo from alps.tw) — **Figure 6:** Variation in Yellow Jet Axes soldered within board. (Photo from alps.tw)

Figure 7: Variation in Red/Brown switches desoldered from the same board. — **Figure 7:** Variation in Red/Brown switches desoldered from the same board.

Even further beyond this in-board variation in color schemes though, is a surprisingly common appearance of “discolored” Taiwan Jet Axis switches. Whereas it is extremely rare for modern, MX-style switches to have discoloration in any part of the switch stem or housing, in both of my batches of Taiwan Jet Axis Blues and Browns/Reds, there are stems which feature a splotchy, alternatively miscolored section. While a similar issue was reported all the way back in a Geekhack post by Matias in 2012, in which there was a problem with orange dye not sticking within the white plastic stems of their Alps switch prototypes, these are the only switches – modern or vintage – that I am aware of in which such an issue was seemingly entirely ignored at large.

Figure 8: Taiwan Jet Axis stem discoloration. (Contrast boosted to better highlight subtle differences in left switch.) — **Figure 8:** Taiwan Jet Axis stem discoloration. (Contrast boosted to better highlight subtle differences in left switch.)

Taiwan Jet Axis Yellow Switch Performance

All of the Taiwan Jet Axis switches which I have in my collection are linear and share a 75g.-ish weighting to their spring. Thus, given that I have the largest number of unmodified Jet Axis Yellows, I have chosen to pick this as a representative of Taiwan Jet Axis linears as whole.

Appearance

In addition to the appearance points noted above in the ‘Switch Background’ section, there are a few more broadly interesting things about the Taiwan Jet Axis switches. Due to the fact that they have a square shape to the portion of the stem that sticks out of the top housing, as well as the fact that they don’t have a through-switch LED region, the top housings of these switches are 180 degree symmetrical and can be put on in two different ways, noted as with the mold numbers to the left or to the right-hand side. In the aforementioned boards which contain Taiwan Jet Axes, it’s not uncommon to have a mixture of right and left mold numbers on the top housings in addition to the color variation. As well, the springs in the Taiwan Jet Axes come in a silver color and feature a similar length, threading, and gauge to traditional style MX springs, meaning that you could deck out these odd switches with your favorite quintuple stage, premium threaded, kryptonite-mithril hybrid springs from whatever microvendor you so choose.

Figure 9: Taiwan Jet Axis switches with ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ top housing orientations as well as their stock springs. — **Figure 9:** Taiwan Jet Axis switches with ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ top housing orientations as well as their stock springs.

Going in reverse order for sake of tangent at the end of this section, looking more closely at the bottom housings first for a mold level inspection, we’ll note several interesting points. Aside the overall boxier shape, as well as the vertical, non-bent leaf deign, internally there appears to be two dots which correspond to the same location as where the top housing guiding rails reside, with little other internal markings. On the underside of the bottom housings, we’ll note that these are five-pin in design and feature a mold number between the PCB pins. Unlike other switches noted before though, this mold marking as well as the pins sit in a sort of “moat” that goes across the entirety of the bottom housing and connects into the channels where there top housing clips lock in place when the switch is closed. Interestingly, all of these design notes, both internal and external, seem to be consistent across all colors of Taiwan Jet Axis as well as in both milky and black bottomed housings.

Figure 10: Taiwan Jet Axis bottom housing internal structure. — **Figure 10:** Taiwan Jet Axis bottom housing internal structure.

Figure 11: Taiwan Jet Axis bottom housing underside featuring mold number and ‘moat’ design. — **Figure 11:** Taiwan Jet Axis bottom housing underside featuring mold number and ‘moat’ design.

Moving next to the stems of the Taiwan Jet Axes, the shape and general component layout of normal, MX-style stems which I review on this site are still present and I will refer to them as such. Most notably, and interesting, is that instead of positive slider rails there are a pair of negative slider rail ‘holes’ on either side of the stem that slide along the guiding rails attached to the top housing. While these are about the same length as normal slider rails, interestingly, they are slightly tapered at the top end rather than the bottom end. As well, the backplate on these switches is flat and unadorned like normal stems, but yet it also takes up a distinctly more noticeable area than is common for MX-style switches. Finally, the front plate and attached stem legs close to normal, with the only noticeable injection molding point on these being located front and center between the set of legs which are attached for the full height of the front plate rather than from only the bottom section like traditional MX-style switches.

Figure 12: Taiwan Jet Axis linear stem design showing stem legs and negative guider rail slots. — **Figure 12:** Taiwan Jet Axis linear stem design showing stem legs and negative guider rail slots.

Finally reaching the top housings of these switches, they are somehow even more interesting than the other components discussed above. Externally, due to the square shape of the stem that protrudes into the top housing, these feature the aforementioned symmetry in that they can be attached to bottom housings in one of two ways. Internally, though, they also feature some rather interesting design choices. First, and most notably, are a set of guiding rails attached to the East and West sides of the top housing. These function with the stems in much the same way that the slider rails work in bottom housings in MX-style switches and allow for a smooth, up-and-down travel of the stems which would otherwise wobble. Additionally interesting is that these have small hollow portions in the ends of these rails which may perhaps completely connect with the dots shown above in the bottom housing of the switch when closed, though they are too small for me to be able to measure using my normal measuring device. As well, the top housings of the Jet Axes also appear to have padding in the North and South sides which likely helps to align the stem somewhat.

Figure 13: Taiwan Jet Axis top housing internal design featuring positive guider rails for the stem. — **Figure 13:** Taiwan Jet Axis top housing internal design featuring positive guider rails for the stem.

As another point of interest, one of the few things that was documented about the Taiwan Jet Axis switches on Deskthority and other sites is their top housing mold numberings. According to Deskthority, the White/Clear Jet Axes feature top housing codes of FXX, FX, X, or XX where X are numbers whereas Yellow switches only feature X or XX style codings. To my surprise, though, these did not seem to correspond with the results of the mold numbers which I have seen in my three sets of Taiwan Jet Axis switches as well as my individual variants for my collection. The mold numbers that I have noted in my collection can be summarized below in the following table:

Based on these results, it appears that there isn’t exactly a well fleshed out understanding of how the Taiwan Jet Axis mold system works. While it appears that variants of switches appear to keep either only an alphanumeric or strictly numeric coding to their mold charts, the lone single number Yellow in my collection throws a wrench in that matter. It has been posited prior that the FXX and FX part codes were potentially newer versions of the Yellow switches, which if true would contend that DX, DXX, and EXX part codes also correspond to newer molds used. As well, this would imply that the Taiwan Jet Axis Yellows were the only ones to see significant usage past initial batches in Red/Brown, Blue, White, and Black. A final point of note here about the mold numberings is that given the documented existence of DX, DXX, FX, and FXX part codes, it would stand to reason that EX mold codes for Taiwan Jet Axis switches do exist and would most likely be found on Yellows than any other color given that EXX exist within my collection. The variation in color across boards, such as the mix of hues in my Yellow or Brown/Red batch did not appear to correspond to the mold numberings in any significant pattern.

Push Feel

One thing worth noting here before I delve deeply into the individual push feel of a Taiwan Jet Axis Yellow is that even though I have attempted to choose the most representative one, there is an incredibly wide range of push feels within a single batch of Taiwan Jet Axis switches. In just my unmodified batch of Yellows, alone, there are several incredibly promising switches on one end with an equally garbage, scratchy, and pingy set on the other end. So, given that there is such a wide variety, I’ve attempted to pick a representative middle ground few switches which I think highlight some of both the better and worse aspects that Taiwan Jet Axis switches bring to the table.

Figure 15: The few, the proud, the… yellow? — **Figure 15:** The few, the proud, the… yellow?

The single best feature of the Taiwan Jet Axis Yellows, overall, is simply how firm the bottoming out and topping out feelings are in these switches. Regardless of other issues present, nearly all of the switches carry a sort of firmness that really isn’t matched by anything within the MX-style mount line of switches save Cherry MX, themselves. While there is still that “slightly thinner topping out” experience that is more in line with recent expectations of switches, its still much closer to something you’d get from a true Cherry MX linear than a Durock/JWK-made switch today. That being said though, the most noticeable feature of the Taiwan Jet Axis switches is the scratch. I mean they’re almost all scratch. Given that the slider rail mechanism design of the Jet Axes has significantly more surface area than that of a flat, 2D slider rail contact surface, its no surprise that there is clearly much more scratch due to more surface area available for friction. Even the ‘mid-ground’ Jet Axes are scratchy enough that many modern enthusiasts would put them in the same league of scratch as with unlubed, normal Cherry MX Black switches, with the significantly worse Jet Axes being almost unbearable.

Interestingly, though, the scratch within these switches does seem to overall improve quite a bit with aftermarket lubrication. The set of Taiwan Jet Axis Blues that were sent to me actually had a majority lubed with Krytox 205g0 by a fellow collector with the expectation of using them in a build someday. For what it’s worth, the Jet Axes were actually significantly smoother than you might expect with this effort put in. However, there are two caveats to this improved quality that you should consider before running out to go find you some Jet Axes of your own to modify. These switches not only required significantly greater amounts of lubrication that most, but they also required significantly more care and tweaking than most. Given the round design of the slider and guider rails in the mechanism, overlubing these regions could actually lead to a sticking and popping feeling not entirely unlike accidentally getting a significant amount of lube in the center mast of the bottom housing of a normal MX switch. This issue, alone, caused several more switches than normal to have to be torn down, cleaned, and relubricated yet again in order to make them work.

Overall, though, in the grand scheme of switches these are not particularly bad linears by any stretch of the imagination. Like any vintage board, they have a pretty decent variation across a lot and require some love and care to bring them back to working condition, but they’re not outside of what someone within the hobby would come to expect of stock, modern Cherry MX switches.

Sound

The sound of Taiwan Jet Axis switches is altogether not unlike Cherry MX Black switches, which is shocking given my absolute lack of comparisons to them above in the ‘Push Feel’ section. On average, these have a decently noticeable amount of scratch sound with firm, solid, and bass heavy housing collisions and little if any spring ping. On the worse end of things, scratch begins to stand out significantly more and a relatively small, but not entirely insignificant amount of Jet Axes have a noticeable spring ping sound to them. On the other end, however, the scratch noise is altogether missing and these stellar condition Jet Axes stand out as surprisingly competitive linears. While the aftermarket lubing does improve the noise from scratch a bit and spring ping a bit in the modified switches I’ve tried, it does give the sound a more stuffy or insulated sound, making the housing collisions ever so slightly less impactful, and the entire switch just a bit more dull with respect to their overall sound.

Wobble

Given the stem design and overall mechanism of the Taiwan Jet Axis switches, its not entirely surprising that this is the most consistent feature across entire batches of switches. More often than not, the Jet Axes have a tiny amount of N/S direction wobble, but little if any wobble in the E/W direction. Even in the worst-case scenario, the stem wobble of some Jet Axes which have seen better days is still better than some modern, fresh out of the box MX-style switches being produced today. As well, no top housing wobble even after a few openings for some of these switches only further supports the decent performance metric here for these switches.

Measurements

As you may be able to guess, given that these are not in line with the traditional MX-style design, my measurement card for this one review has been adapted as best as I can for these switches and I will try and make one to one comparisons where possible. These will not be stored in the measurement sheet that I’ve linked here, but they will attempt to follow the same organizational scheme I’ve set out prior.

Comparison Notes to Other Notable Linear Switches

Note – These are not aimed at being comprehensive comparisons between all factors of these switches as this would simply be too long for this writeup. These are little notes of interest I generated when comparing these pieces to the Taiwan Jet Axis Yellows side by side.

If you would like to learn more about these switches, I’ve already completed reviews or scorecards for some of them. If the names below are highlighted in a grey color, click them to be taken to my other content or reviews on them!

Cherry MX Black

- The average Taiwan Jet Axis is not only scratchier in push feel than the average Cherry MX Black, but also in terms of sound. While the best ones are much more in line with Cherry MX Black performance, the vast majority simply are not.

- The vast majority of Taiwan Jet Axis switches, though, do stomp the Cherry MX Blacks in terms of stem wobble in both directions, however.

- On average, there is significantly more spring ping noticeable in Cherry MX Black switches than the ere are in Taiwan Jet Axis switches. Obviously, these are both highly batch dependent switches, but again, this is on average from my testing.

Novelkeys Cream

- The stock, non-worn in scratch of a Novelkeys Cream switch is the most comparable to the average scratch of a Taiwan Jet Axis switch out of any on this list. It does actually make me wonder a slight bit if break in machines would be able to produce a similar effect on Jet Axis switches as they do on Novelkeys Cream switches.

- Again, the stem wobble in the Taiwan Jet Axis switches is better than the Novelkeys Creams, but not by nearly the same margin as the Cherry MX Black switch comparison.

- Overall, the Novelkeys Cream switches are significantly louder than the Taiwan Jet Axis switches, and feature a much more higher pitched and sharper sounds to their housings’ collisions.

Gateron Hippo

- Scratch is present in both the Gateron Hippos and Taiwan Jet Axes in both push feel and sound, but overall, it is much more of a dominating feature in the Jet Axes. Only a couple of the best Taiwan Jet Axis Yellows in my batch were comparable to the Hippos on this metric.

- Overall, the Gateron Hippos are a bit louder than the Jet Axes Yellows, though the pitch difference is significantly narrower than that of the other differences noted here on this list.

- Again, not to much surprise to those who have tried them, the Taiwan Jet Axis Yellows have a significantly better stem wobble in both directions than the Gateron Hippo switches.

KTT Sea Salt

- Whereas the scratch is more present in the Taiwan Jet Axis in the push feel than in the sound, it is more present in the sound of the KTT Sea Salts than it is the push feeling.

- The stem wobble, yet again, is better in the Taiwan Jet Axis switches than in the KTT Sea Salts.

- Surprisingly, these switches have roughly the same overall volume to them, with the topping out of the KTT Sea Salts becoming only slightly louder than the Taiwan Jet Axes at very fast activation speeds.

Durock POM Linear

- The Durock POM switches are not only significantly less scratchy than the Taiwan Jet Axis switches, but they also have a much more subtle, bass-centric bottoming out sound.

- The stem wobble between these two switches is probably the most comparable of all of them on this list and I would say that they have very similar N/S and E/W stem wobble between them.

- While not strictly a stock comparison between the two switches, a well lubed and modified Taiwan Jet Axis is actually decently comparable to the POM Linears in terms of push feeling and bottoming out, with only perhaps being slightly more sluggish and heavy in the feeling as a result of the amount of lubricant required to reach that feeling.

Raed

- The Raed switches are much quieter than the Taiwan Jet Axis Yellows, and especially so with respect to both scratch and spring ping.

- The bottoming out of the Raed switches, since it occurs on the long stem poles, feels significantly more pointed than the otherwise flat, solid bottoming out of the Taiwan Jet Axis switches.

- Stem wobble is yet again the only category where the Taiwan Jet Axes really edge out to competition here, having significantly less N/S and E/W direction stem wobble than the Raed switches.

Scores and Statistics

Note – These scores are not necessarily completely indicative of the nuanced review above. If you’ve skipped straight to this section, I can only recommend that you at least glance at the other sections above in order to get a stronger idea of my opinion about these switches.