(Apologies for the poor quality photos and video - the only camera I have is on my phone.)
I bought the soft black landing pads from Elite Keyboards https://elitekeyboards.com/products.php ... d=sl120_cs as well as some EK MechLube 2. The guides on GeekHack suggest using MechLube not the MechLube 2 that I had mistakenly ordered. But I don't think it really affected the final result.
Ironing the pads
- 1. Find a hard flat surface to use for ironing. If using an ironing board be prepared for the ironing board cover to smell a bit afterwards.
- 2. Fold a blank piece of paper in half and place the landing pads inside. Place this on the ironing surface.
- 3. Iron the pads. I ironed them all in one go. I did not find the need to iron them separately or in groups of four. If the temperature is too high there will be a lot of smoke and an unpleasant smell. Time to open some windows! The paper maybe stained brown and the pads will stick to it.
- 4. Carefully peel the pads off the paper. They may curl up a bit so place them under some books and leave for a few hours.
- IronedLandingPads.jpg (171.36 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
- 1. Remove the keycaps. Don't lose the spring under the spacebar. I found it contributed to the noise reduction.
- 2. Undo four screws on the base. One screw is under the big label. Another is under the circular sticker. (In my case, the screw under label didn't come out.)
- 3. Use an old credit card around back, sides and front to take top off. I found the top quite difficult to remove.
- 4. Undo two screws below F1/F2 and Scroll Lock to take bottom off.
- 5. Undo the internal USB cable from PCB. Although I could not manage to do this which makes some of the later stages a bit fiddly.
- 6. Undo 21 black screws that have white arrows pointing at them. They are longer than the case screws so keep them separate. There are also 11 silver screws with white circles around them that also need to be removed.
- 7. Turn it the other way up and gently lift the plate away from the rubber domes. The domes tend to stick to the plate.
- 8. Put the PCB and domes back in the bottom part of the case.
- 9. The springs may move so test the keyboard by plugging it back into usb port and using the event viewer in something like Karabiner. (I use a Mac. I'm not sure what the corresponding Windows or Linux program is.) The springs that need repositioning are those where the rubber sheet has raised up in the wrong place.
- 10. Pop sliders out of the housing. Just press on them with a finger or prod with tweezers. Put the sliders to one side. I just placed them on top of corresponding rubber dome.
- 11. The 2u stabilizers and their housing just pop out of the plate. I found it a little disconcerting as to how little force was needed for this. In comparison the 1u housings remained firmly attached to the plate.
This is by far the longest part of the process.
- 1. Carefully tear off a pad and place it on one of the purple sliders. (Some pads maybe hard to remove and tear the adjacent one as well. You may find it easier to use scissors to cut the pads out.) The hole in the pad is slightly too small for the cylinder, so the pad climbs up it a little bit. It also sticks out over the base. Orient the pad so that its opposite corners are over the widest part of the base that clips into the housing.
- 2. Pop the slider back into the housing. Test pressing it up. It should be much quieter on the way up compare to a slider that doesn't have a pad. If the slider sticks in the up position, use nail clippers to trim it down so the edges do not overhang the base. Sometimes the pad may need to be removed from the slider in order to trim it sufficiently. It is also helpful to push down the pad so it does not climb up the cylinder too much.
- PadsOnSliders.jpg (162.95 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
- SliderStuckUp.jpg (180.52 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
- 1. For the spacebar I applied the lube on stabilizer wire, on the plate near the wire and in and around the mechanism at either end of the wire.
- 2. For the stabilized keys I put a landing pad around the housing, as well as some lube on the parts not covered by the pad. Lube was also applied to the stabilizer wire, particularly where it touches the housing. As the housing easily popped out of the plate, I applied more lube to the contact area between the plate and the housing.
- LubedStabilisers.jpg (257.85 KiB) Viewed 2781 times
- 1. Now all the sliders should be back in their housings and reaffixed to the plate. Place the plate on top of the domes and test that all the keys work as before. Pressing directly on the sliders should sound much quieter than before. In my case the 2u stabilized keys are almost silent. Previously they were the noisest keys of the lot.
- 2. Carefully turn the plate, sliders, domes and pcb upside down. Screw the pcb to the plate using the screws removed in step 6. For the first few screws, I had to press hard to push the pcb and plate together. After a few screws, turn the keyboard the other up and place it back in the bottom of the case. Again test that all the keys work. We check to ensure that the springs and domes are still lined up. We test now because there are fewers screws to undo.
- 3. Once all the screws connecting the pcb to the plate have been tightened, turn the keyboard the right way up and screw in the screws below F1/F2 and Scroll lock.
- 4. Snap the top back on.
- 5. Screw in the four screws on the back.
- 6. Refix the keycaps, start typing and enjoy the silence! The elimination of the clack on the upstroke seems to accentuate the thock on the way down. For me, the only key with a little bit of rattle still is the space bar.
Here's what the finished mod sounds like. Overall it took me about 10 hours to do this but I'm probably a slow worker. If you don't have that amount of time to spare, consider waiting for the silencing rings that Hypersphere is working on. http://deskthority.net/help-f53/silenci ... 51-30.html Ironing, trimming, fitting and checking that the landing pads don't stick was by far the longest part of the process.
References
http://deskthority.net/review-f45/a-tal ... t8968.html Muirium's Novatouch review gave me the confidence to open my Novatouch up
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=49046 Spicebar's posts on Geekhack that originally showed me what to do.
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=65 ... msg1540860
