 Konnichiwa Linus Tech Tips viewers. We are coming to you live from Japan Not live. In fact by the time you're watching this I'll not only have come back from Japan but also traveled somewhere else and probably be back from there too, so Not live, but definitely from Japan. I can prove it look that's Japan and we're wearing these robes so clearly we're not lying and Today we did something pretty exciting courtesy of Logitech. We got to tour the Omron factory right here in Japan where they make the Roamer G switches in Logitech's G910 Orion Spark keyboard and it was Actually a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It was kind of awesome. Stay tuned So the tour kind of began in the lobby and what I didn't actually know when we showed up was that Omron actually Makes a ton of different types of switches So automotive, factory automation and then kind of what we're mainly interested the more consumer side of things I thought they just made like mouse switches And not even then they have a whole bunch of different categories for the types of switches that they have with these little delightful characters So they have rocker, tactile, miniature, special, sub-mini and ultra-mini and they all have their own little like Superhero. I think rocker is the cutest one. Well probably. She kind of looks like a pirate Except I think that's just supposed to be an eye. Yes. Yeah So not really pirate but either way there are they're supposed to be superhero characters and I think that's actually pretty awesome So next up actually right next to the lobby was the labs which we creatively called lab one and lab two It's amazing. So lab one we didn't look at too much That's where they do RoHAS which is like basically keeping hazardous stuff out of the products. Apparently very important validation as well as new material development and then lab two which was where all the Super crazy bananas stuff that we somewhat recognized was and was the only one that actually had anyone in it today Although it was one person sitting at the scanning electron microscope looking at one thing So apparently nothing failed that day. No, they have a ton of a crazy expensive machinery in here including multiple electron microscopes Like you just said x-ray machines all this kind of stuff. One of them was 50 million yen. Another one was 10 million yen And the total cost of that whole lab just lab 2 was 15 million US dollars just in case Just in case something dies and you need to know exactly why down to the tiny tiny Submicroscopic scale the 15 million dollar just in case lab So then we had the meeting where everyone introduced themselves twice Yeah, very formal very formal. We watched a video. It was excellent video Good video very good video on Ron next time you want to make a video come talk to us Come talk to us first and help you out a little sort that out for you guys and then it was finally time to get suited up I think the best part of this for me was a that they even had Yes official Omron branded like kimonos and then the second best part for me was when Luke tried to put on the one-size-fits-all For Japanese people slippers before we went into the lab. That didn't really work out. Also my kimono was really short priceless Flood kimono just in case there's a tsunami you're ready for it. I'm oh Okay, we're going there Once we're inside the factory, I was actually blown away by how loud it was There's a lot going on so much stuff happening all the machines are running like some factories you'll enter and it's like Oh, they're only running two or three lines right now. It's like nope on Ron is 100% all it's crazy So we made our way to the very first step in the manufacturer of a roamer g-switch Where they had like a metal big metal spool feeding into a machine That would then split it in two and then punch out the like main design Yeah, and then from there it actually goes on to a new reel that then gets carried somewhere else in the factory So that's like some cutting-edge technology real to real That's a joke So the next station is where things actually got pretty interesting and I started learning things I did not know about roamer g-switches So there's a couple machines here and at the first sort of functional station in the first one It basically places a little like super tiny wire The second station actually checks to make sure that it's there It's probably the thing the third one forms it and tries to get it within Tolerances and then the fourth one checks again, but with imagery to make sure that it's exactly all laid out how it should be and then there's a second machine and That entire machines job is to put another entire set of these contact points on Which is something I didn't realize about roamer g-switches all switches will have a contact point But like we just said there's two sets on this one So if you happen to get dust or some other type of material on one of the contact points causing it to fail The other one could still work and you wouldn't even notice that there's anything wrong with your keyboard So there's a redundant actual actual actuation which brought up a few things that you were pointing out which is the differences between Japanese manufacturing and German manufacturing Yeah because we've seen a few factories now two German ones and one Japanese and there's no doubt that The Germans and the Japanese are the most likely of anyone in the world to let us see their factory because they're clean They're efficient. They're organized and they're world-renowned for being great manufacturers But we noticed a fundamentally different philosophy The Germans on the one hand are like kind of measure 50 times make sure it's absolutely perfect cut once Yeah, and you look at the cherry MX switch. There's only one point of failure, but the things don't die Yeah, whereas the roamer g-switch and Omron I mean maybe and maybe they do but maybe they kind of accept that One of those contact points could fail possibly possibly it could but hey if it does well There's two so we don't that redundancy and another thing I learned about roamer G's at this station This is a freaking expensive switch the amount of metal in that thing unreal another real joke But when they led us into a completely different building for the next thing that's what we knew was getting real That's another real joke Okay, anyways the first station it folds those contacts that we were just working with downwards Cleans them up a little bit and I was fascinated by that Yeah, you were and then we saw the most innovative human machine I've ever seen ever I didn't realize that every roamer G switch is literally made by people standing next to each other Moving them along the production line until they're finally blown into the little tray of delivery to Logitech by yours truly bet you didn't know that either actually that's a bad joke too There's a real machine behind all the people Yeah, every roamer G switch does not come with some Linus DNA and fine This is legitimately the coolest piece of manufacturing equipment I have yet seen this thing is balls to the walls Bananas and there's two full lineups of them So station number one of this monster takes all that metal from before that frankly I was wondering how they get all that in a single Yeah, I was pretty worried about that So takes all that before cuts it and then positions the folded cut pieces vertically a real space saver Next up those pieces aren't actually aligned properly So it turns it and then kind of mushes them together for that awesome redundancy that these switches have Next that whole thing gets picked up and then placed into the housing that is fed via a hopper system From the back with like vibration feeding and then like an automated orientation checking thing It's actually pretty cool pretty ridiculous next up was lubrication. So there's actually The lubrication station. There's actually three different lubrication drops. You are the lubrication And that is where it gets a lot of its 70 million key press validation from is this lubrication will last that entire time So after a quick QC stage not the final one by any means at all We get to see the little rod that aids light transmission added to the switch So what's so special about the roamer G is that the LED actually shines up from the middle through this Light dispersing rod and then evenly illuminates the entire top of the key switch a big advantage over other Mechanical key switches in the market Which are only able to effectively illuminate about half of the switch making them a little less A little less even looking for lack of a better word Next up is where we get a lot of the feel of the switch from so at first we add the spring which just kind of gets Placed there and then immediately afterwards they have the two blue and white pieces fed from hoppers in the back And then placed together kind of behind the main assembly line and then those two pieces go on top of the spring Compressing it all the way down and the blue piece is just kind of the top Housing of the switch then the white piece is actually a large plunger This is again where you get a lot of the feel from of a roamer G After the top and bottom housing are clamped together it's time for the final QC check the switch is pretty much done So it's grabbed and then it moves through a number of stations. So at the first one, it's Warmed up if you know what I mean and at the second one it goes through an electronic validation of how the switch press Feels to an electronic arm then it goes into a like a laser engraving slash Photo validation chamber and if it passes the validation it gets a laser etching on the side of the part number and the mandrel date where it is finally taken off the QC carousel dropped onto an assembly line belt and then blasted Actually, it's awesome. I love the little air blast blasted by air into the correct tray inside one of the bins For eventual delivery to logitech What a cool cool piece of machinery definitely one of the best automated assembly lines I've ever seen we haven't seen that many. That's true for those of you wondering What happens to those switches that didn't make it to the conveyor belt of epic awesome win? Well, they are validated as failed and then pulled off the line immediately and sorted by why they failed So if there's a main reason why a whole bunch of switches are failing They'll know exactly what's going on. They can take those back to the lab They also don't get a laser engraving at all So if your keyboard for some reason had no laser markings on the bottom It's made out of failed switches that someone somehow managed to obtain from a dumpster behind Omron You should probably get that checked out. Yeah Speaking of checking out we're checking out and so the only folks left to talk to you are actually some pretty important guys That we met here from both Logitech and Omron who want to talk about a little bit more behind the scenes What exactly got into their heads when they went? Oh, yeah Well, let's just take gaming mechanical key switches and completely reinvent them Which I actually discussed quite deeply with one of them while naked in a hot spring. Did you really? I did that's hot It is it was So Logitech was looking at the market and we saw that there wasn't a mechanical switch that was built to make it A mechanical switch that was built specifically for gaming application Omron is well known throughout the world for building mechanical switches So that seemed like a natural partner to build a gaming switch from the ground up To ensure the quality of the switch, not only the design, but also the process of building and designing parts and materials, including the quality This project took us about two and two and a half or three years to finish. The objective for building the Romergy switches is for live longer, move faster and much brighter than the one we have today. The actuation distance went to 1.5 millimeters instead of 2. It gives you an advantage within the context of a game to do your action much more quickly than your opponent. We increased the durability by 40 percent over a standard mechanical switch that's out on the market today, up to 70 million activations. In regards to reliability, there are two activation points, so as you're pushing down, even if one fouls, the other one will continue to activation so there's no risk of a lost action in a gaming environment. Thank you for watching!