Spent 4 hours trying to fix a sticky spacebar on my first build

I built my first custom keyboard last month and got everything working except the spacebar. It kept sticking down after I pressed it. I figured it was a simple fix, maybe the stabilizer wire was bent or the lube was wrong. I took the whole thing apart three times, re-lubed the stabs, and even swapped the switches. After four hours of messing with it, I found out the problem was the keycap itself. It had a tiny piece of extra plastic on the bottom that was catching on the switch housing. I just filed it down with a nail file and it worked perfect right after. Has anyone else dealt with keycap molding issues that took forever to figure out?

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1 Comment

kim.stella3h ago

I remember reading a post on a keyboard forum where someone had a similar issue with their Enter key. They spent days swapping switches and re-lubing stabilizers before noticing a small imperfection on the underside of the keycap. It turned out to be a tiny raised line from the molding process that was catching on the switch stem. I think a lot of these problems come from how mass-produced keycaps can have small flaws that are hard to spot. Filing down the extra plastic seems like a smart fix and I've heard some people use a fine-grit sandpaper for that. It is frustrating when such a small detail takes hours to find.