Solder vs. Hotswap: The Realities of Choosing a PCB

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In the current custom keyboard scene, getting into the hobby is easier than ever. With things like pre-lubed switches, great out-of-the-box budget boards that feel premium, and easy build experiences have completely flattened the learning curve. Although, even with all these entry-level luxuries, every builder eventually hits the exact same fork in the road: Hotswap or Solder, which is better? It’s a question I get asked all the time on my stream, maybe not as much as what’s my favourite switch, but enough times that I wanted to write about it after all these years.

On paper, it looks like a simple choice between convenience and manual labor. Hotswap lets you pop switches in and have a working board in something like 15 minutes. Solder requires an iron, some steady hands, ventilation, and an hour-ish of your time. 

I really do think that looking through the lens of “installation effort” can miss the bigger picture. The choice you make here directly impacts your layout freedom, the physical stability of your switches, how easy the board is to fix long-term, and, to some degree, the overall sound signature of your build.

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Layout

The single biggest limitation of choosing a hotswap PCB is that it sometimes can kill your layout flexibility. Well, sometimes, and I’ll talk about it here in a second.

But why is that? Well, a hotswap socket (like Kailh or Gateron) is a physical plastic housing with metal leaf contacts inside. These sockets take up a decent chunk of physical space on the back of the PCB. Because of their footprint, manufacturers can’t easily overlap them to give you options. When you buy a hotswap board, you are sometimes locked into a single, fixed layout: standard ANSI with a set spacebar and a standard backspace.

A solderable PCB, on the other hand, is an open canvas of clean copper pads and thru-holes. Without those bulky plastic housings on the back, a single solder board can support multiple classic enthusiast preferences.

However this is only my general findings from building hundreds of keyboards. Sometimes companies are able to offer us incredibly well specced out hotswap PCBs and sometimes they make solder PCBs that suck! One thing to note though, is that another draw back of doing hotswap PCBs with all the fixings for layouts is that you’re left with north, south… and sometimes east and west facing switches. These may interfere with certain keycaps and sometimes LED backlighting as well.

Beyond The Layout

When you assemble a hotswap board, your switches are held in place by a few things: the plastic clips on the switch plate, the plastic legs going into the PCB (sometimes) and the internal friction of the copper leaves inside the socket. If you are using a standard full plate, this works perfectly fine.

But if you are chasing some extra flex or wanting to try a plateless or half-plate build, a hotswap PCB starts to push its limits. Without a solid plate to keep the switches perfectly perpendicular, regular typing forces cause tiny, microscopic rocking movements over time. This can lead to the switches slowly moving out of place or some rattling and ticking noise depending on the switches. Oh and it’s easy to misdiagnose it as a bad stabilizer or an unlubed switch, I’ve had people send in boards thinking it was there own doing but meanwhile it’s just very loose fitting switches.

The sockets on the bottom of the PCB can also cause sound to bounce slightly differently as well. This is why you will sometimes hear the argument about solder sounding different from hotswap, however I personally think this argument only has merit for very loose fitting switches.

And this is where I feel solder PCBs win. Soldering creates an unbroken, structural bond between the switch pins and the PCB. The switch becomes a permanent extension of the board itself. This means you can run a completely plateless build with perfect alignment and zero switch wobble, assuming you build it perfectly! There is no room for the switches to bounce around and that means no microscopic ticking noises.

The Hidden Costs

Solderable PCBs do fall behind in one aspect though, and that’s the hidden cost of equipment. Sure, you can probably just use an older iron if you have one, and a cheap desoldering pump. But buying all this from scratch can add up quick. You’d need solder, an iron, ventilation, something to desolder with, and other supplies.

Assuming you’re careful with your hotswap sockets, you need a switch puller and switches and you’re good to go.

Lifespan Math: Is Hotswap Actually More Durable?

The go-to argument for hotswap is longevity, basically if a switch dies, you can just pull it out and drop a new one in. And for the most part, it’s a hard thing to beat. Afterall, convenience is always king. 

Hotswap sockets are generally rated for about 50 to 100 swaps before the internal metal leaves start to lose their tension. And I would personally say no one is realistically ever going to reach this on a single PCB. The real danger, though, happens when you accidentally insert a switch with a slightly bent pin. If you push down too hard, you won’t just bend the pin. Instead, the downward pressure can break the solder joints on the back and rip the entire hotswap pad clean off the PCB trace.

I have seen time and time again the argument that this isn’t a problem for people. However working for NovelKeys and the keyboard scene in general tells me otherwise. At one point in time, I would see a few messages weekly on how to fix this issues before PSAs were put into place on the best method to install switches into sockets. For the most part though, most boards ship with a lot of foam that help support these sockets from underneath, making it less of an issue recently.

Oh and fixing a lifted hotswap pad is tedious. There are a few ways to go about it and most people who buy hotswap, probably don’t have the means to fix it. On a solder PCB, if a switch fails or needs replacing, a basic desoldering pump and fresh solder wire make the job clean, open, and incredibly easy to repair without risking the board. However, you still need to make sure you own the equipment.

The Verdict

At the end of the day, even though solder seems better on paper for a lot of reasons, its becoming more of a rarity into the keyboard scene, at least the custom side of it. More and more people are jumping to hotswap for good reason!

For example, if you’re constantly swapping out switches to try the latest linears or tactiles, your current workspace doesn’t have good ventilation for soldering, or you just want to build your board on your desk and be typing on it 20 minutes later, then hotswap is a no brainer.

If you want absolute control over your layout, you are building a plateless or half-plate board, or you want the absolute cleanest, most consistent acoustic profile possible without any random micro-differences, then go solderable. Don’t think twice.

Because I own the equipment, I tend to stick to solder. I find it a more enjoyable process overall honestly. If you want my recommendation for equipment, well then I use an FX888D and typically Kester No Clean solder but I’ve had lots of luck with various brands.

Thanks for reading. And if ever have more questions, join my discord or my live streams! Until then, happy building. 

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