part · switch

Cherry MX2A Red

Spec sheet

Type: Linear
Top housing: Nylon
Bottom housing: Nylon
Stem: POM
Spring: 45g actuation · 75g bottom-out
Travel: 4 mm
Factory lubed: yes
Released: Aug 24, 2023

Cherry's redesigned MX Red with a factory grease ring chemically similar to Krytox 205g0 and tighter stem tolerances. Smoother and quieter than the legacy MX Red while keeping the same 45g actuation and 100M-actuation lifespan.

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Mentioned in 10 articles

A row of five switch stems rising out of coiled springs of increasing thickness, each paired with a small force-gauge dial marking its actuation weight, rendered in a warm coral line-drawing style.

Guides

What a switch's gram number actually tells you before you buy

Every switch spec sheet carries two gram numbers — actuation and bottom-out — and treating them as one number is the most common mistake in a first switch purchase. Here's what each one measures, what ranges actually suit typing versus gaming, and why the same number can feel completely different depending on switch type.

thockOct 1, 20268 min read

Trends

Cherry's tracker slide continues. Keychron's Kickstarter delivered.

Three weeks ago thock closed a piece with two open questions: would Cherry's brand line keep closing the gap toward positive territory, and would Keychron's V6 Ultra HE Kickstarter give the tracker something new to climb on. Both questions have answers now, and they point in opposite directions for a related reason.

thockAug 30, 20267 min read

Ideas

Parts pairing for a split build: two independent halves, two independent decisions

A split board is two keyboards that happen to share a keymap. Most builders still buy parts for it like it's one — matching switches, ordering a single sculpted keycap set, and never touching the left half's tuning differently from the right's.

thockAug 26, 20269 min read

Split cross-section line drawing of a mechanical switch. The left half shows a stem with elastomer pads on the foot of its legs and the top of its rails, picked out in a dusty-rose splash; the right half shows a housing with a dampening ring seated at the floor. Rendered in a single warm-grey stroke with a brass-bronze theme dot at the upper right.

Deep Dives

What a silent switch actually silences — and what it can't

Every keystroke lands twice — once on the floor, once on the ceiling. Cherry molds an elastomer pad onto the stem to catch both; Gazzew fits a silicone one. The undamped Boba U4T shows what either approach is buying — about 14 dB on one tester's meter — and what it costs in travel, rebound, and a bump with nowhere left to go.

thockAug 19, 202610 min read

MX-style switch exploded cross-section: a keycap lifted above the top housing, the stem crown showing through the housing's opening, the stem shaft descending through a slotted foam pad wrapped around it at mid-housing height, spring coils beneath the pad, and a PCB strip below.

Ideas

The Holee mod: what foam inside the switch actually buys you

Small pads of polyurethane foam cut and wedged inside the switch housing itself — not under the PCB, not behind it, not under the keycap. The Holee mod works at a smaller scale than every other foam mod in the hobby, and it costs proportionally more time.

thockJul 31, 20268 min read

Cherry MX2A switch cross-section, side view — top housing with stem hole, cruciform-mount POM stem column drawn in cherry-red splash, 5-coil spring, bent-leaf contact, and bottom housing with pin contacts; a thin dashed callout traces from the stem-housing interface to a magnified circular inset showing the new factory grease ring with scattered lube dots.

Deep Dives

What Cherry's MX2A revision actually changed

Cherry's MX2A landed in 2023 with a real engineering update — factory lube, tighter tolerances, the same 100M-press lifespan. The reason the discourse cooled isn't that the switch failed; it's that the enthusiast slot it aimed at was already claimed by the time it arrived.

thockMay 10, 20268 min read

Exploded-axonometric silhouette of a mechanical keyboard switch on a dark background — top housing, stem, spring, and lower housing separated by thin gap lines, with a single soft-coral accent dot anchoring the stem.

Deep Dives

How HMX took over the mid-tier linear slot

Two years ago HMX was a name on a vendor page nobody pronounced confidently. In W19, the Cloud sat second among switches on our tracker and landed in half the $120 prebuilts the scene argues about. The rise wasn't an accident.

thockMay 10, 202613 min read

Guides

Lubing 101: what matters, what doesn't, and where to stop

Lube moves the sound and feel of a switch in ways nothing else in the build can. It also chews up a Saturday and ruins switches when applied with the enthusiasm the rabbit-hole crowd recommends. Here is the version that earns its keep.

thockApr 30, 20269 min read

Guides

Switch housings, compared: nylon, polycarbonate, POM, and the rest

The housing line on a switch spec sheet is the second-most-important thing about a switch, after the type, and most buyers skim past it. Material decides how the switch rings, how the stem rails feel under a finger, and how much grace it gives a bad lube job. A 'PC top, nylon bottom' tag is doing more work than its three words suggest.

thockApr 21, 202610 min read

Cross-section diagram of a switch housing showing where a film sits between top and bottom housing

Ideas

Switch films: do they actually do anything?

Thin POM shims between your switch housings cost five dollars and promise a tighter, better-sounding switch. The mechanism is real. Whether it matters on your specific switches is a separate question.

thockApr 13, 20268 min read

Cherry MX2A Red appears in editor-curated build sheets.

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