[Interest Check] Silencing Rings for Topre RF or HHKB

[Hypersphere]

@barkweed: Good to know that the rings ultimately worked well for you. That Novatouch case is really annoying! CM apparently does not want anyone to go inside, so it is locked up like King Tut's tomb, complete with the mummy's curse of voiding the warranty if you break the seal.

This is such a contrast to the RF case: No hidden screws (in fact, no screws at all), no seals, no voiding of the warranty. Just manually popping the tabs and you're in.

Nevertheless, I agree that the result of installing Silencing Rings is well worth the trouble of opening the Novatouch.

[Stev]

I'll be running a Europe GB for them… if you can wait until January!

Hiya, do you have pricing for Europe GB for these rings? Set of 90 in particular

[Muirium]

I'll open up the GB soon. I still need to figure out pricing and within-EU shipping rates.

Also, looks like I'll be back in February now. Flights are booked!

[Lpwl]

Great news !

I just received my Novatouch this morning and I'm eager to try those silencing rings on it !

[Elk]

The main curse of the NT is managing not to disturb the springs, which I have not managed to do on my first NT and it's still making me pay for it by making discordant sounds... Anyone have any ideas to remedy that situation (clicky noise on some keys) ?

[Hypersphere]

@Elk: I've been lucky with most of the Topre-switch keyboards I've worked on. By being careful when lifting the PCB off the plate, the domes and springs will often adhere to the PCB. Likewise, by very carefully replacing the PCB with its adherent domes and springs, they will also stay in place.

If you are doing a dome swap, thereby intentionally removing the domes and springs from the PCB, or if you are unlucky and the domes and springs separate from the PCB against your will, then you need to be sure that the domes are placed carefully in each of the switches and that the springs are properly seated within each of the domes.

When I have been faced putting domes and springs back in order, I use my index finger to gently tap or jiggle each dome to get it to nestle into its switch. I then carefully place each spring into its dome and gently tap with my index finger to coax the spring into its proper position. This procedure sometimes needs to be repeated several times, working across the entire board. Once the domes and springs are in place, the PCB is lowered very carefully onto the assembly, taking care to line up the screw holes as you go without disturbing any of the springs.

I have considered putting metal guides into the screw holes to ensure that the PCB lines up properly with the plate during reassembly, but thus far I have managed by working under a strong light and eyeballing the alignment.

Sometimes I have gotten everything back together only to discover that I have one wonky key somewhere on the board. The only thing for it is to take everything apart and ensure that all the domes and springs are properly seated. One time, I had neglected to install a ring on one of the switches, which of course resulted in that switch having return-stroke clack.

[Muirium]

Watch 002's video of taking apart a Realforce. The main difference is that the NovaTouch's case is a right bastard to take apart for the first time. But they're easier after that. I've two NovaTouches and have been in and out of them five or six times, for my review, LED work and lastly Hyper's rings. Managed to make a bit of a mess with the dome sheet and springs some of the times I was in there, but never any harm. You need to make sure everything lies right when you seal it back up with all those screws!

Hey guys. I made my first ever (talky) video demonstrating how to open a Realforce.

I made a few mistakes here and there:

- At the start, I suggest that the Realforce is not held together with any screws. I should have clarified there that I meant just the case is held shut without screws, which becomes obvious pretty soon in the video

- I mention that the black screws don't go into the mounting plate, but they do. The difference is that the silver screws have threaded standoffs that they go into, whereas the black ones don't.

I have opened a YouTube channel called 'Deskthority', and if anyone else is interested in posting keyboard related videos or tutorials there, I should be able to make you a contributor/admin/whatever YouTube calls it.
Also, I am not sure why the video is in 360p, sorry about that. The raw file is in 1920 x 1080 resolution so don't know what happened there. Hope it's useful!

[Elk]

When I have been faced putting domes and springs back in order, I use my index finger to gently tap or jiggle each dome to get it to nestle into its switch. I then carefully place each spring into its dome and gently tap with my index finger to coax the spring into its proper position. This procedure sometimes needs to be repeated several times, working across the entire board. Once the domes and springs are in place, the PCB is lowered very carefully onto the assembly, taking care to line up the screw holes as you go without disturbing any of the springs.

I've been doing exactly that, several times, and sometimes swapping the springs, but every time my 'z', 'i', 'd', 'g' and right 'fn' still click... I'm puzzled at this stage about what may be causing this, specially since I swapped the springs in those keys for other keys that don't click...

[Hypersphere]

@Elk: When you say that certain keys still click, what do you mean? Are you referring to the down-stroke click or the return stroke clack? Are all the sliders installed with the same orientation? What about the rings? Are all the rings installed shiny side up (as you look down on the slider with the barrel facing you and the "legs" facing away from you).

Do you get the click both with and without the keycaps installed? With some keycap sets, I get a click on the NT because the keycaps are hitting the switch housing or plate. I've had the best luck with higher profile keycaps such as OEM profile.

[Elk]

It's a plasticky sound, not really a frank "click", that is not always sounding the same, and it does happen even with the caps removed (on downstroke) and also when I nudge the key cap laterally. It's not about bottoming keys up or down -- it feels like it comes when there is slight pressure on the dome. I tried putting the rings on any side, it doesn't change anything (the first time I put your rings on I didn't care about which side they were put on, btw). It happened also with the large orings I used before.

[Muirium]

The only thing in there that should be able to click is the spring, I imagine. Something's not lined up right.

I also installed Hyper's rings without any preference to which side up they faced. Seems to make no difference! I was already preoccupied keeping my NovaTouch sliders in the same orientation, which looks nicer to me…

[Elk]

That's what I thought, but then why dismounting everything and back still only cause this noise on the same keys (even when I put the springs under other domes) ?

That's a mystery to me... At this stage I'm thinking about putting the keyboard in the freezer to cause metal contraction of the springs...

[Hypersphere]

By a process of elimination, it would seem that the clicking sound is something inherent to those particular switches.

On my NT, I noticed some lack of consistency in the switches. For example, the fit of keycaps on some of the stems was very loose. By swapping caps, I found that the problem was in the switch stems rather than the keycaps.

Now that I have optimized everything on my NT with silencing rings, lubing the stabilizers, putting foam pads under the spacebar, and installing dye-sub PBT caps with the OEM profile, I've noticed that I have two keys on the board that emit a slight click -- the "K" key and the "F7" key. It could be some inconsistency in the switches themselves.

Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed the clicks if the board were not otherwise so quiet now, and if I weren't so hyper-vigilant to keyboard noises after installing Silencing Rings on every Topre-switch board I can get my hands on!

[Elk]

I've swapped the stems also, so by elimination it would seem the part I didn't move : domes, are the culprits... also I didn't notice this before dismantling the keyboard so it must be something I did, but how can a rubber dome cause sharp sounds is puzzling to me.

[Hypersphere]

I've swapped the stems also, so by elimination it would seem the part I didn't move : domes, are the culprits... also I didn't notice this before dismantling the keyboard so it must be something I did, but how can a rubber dome cause sharp sounds is puzzling to me.

Did you swap the switch housings as well or just the sliders? Were all the switch housings firmly seated?

[Elk]

Ah ! the switch housing, now I have a trail to follow, thanks !

[Elk]

Apparently it was the switch housings : on those specific spots, they are very slightly wider. Unfortunately I didn't have anything thin enough to wrap around the plungers to verify... I guess i'll have to settle with this :/

[Hypersphere]

Apparently it was the switch housings : on those specific spots, they are very slightly wider. Unfortunately I didn't have anything thin enough to wrap around the plungers to verify... I guess i'll have to settle with this :/

Glad to know that the mystery may have been solved at last. Just to clarify -- are you saying that the diameter of the switch housing cylinder is slightly larger for some of the keys than for others?

What about the fit of the housing to the plate? This is what I was thinking about before. I've had some of the housings pop out of the plate when pushing out the sliders.

[RexS]

I've shuffled rubber domes between all three of my Topre keyboards and installed silencing rings on two of them. As tempting as it is to leave the rubber stuck to the pc board on disassembly and hope for perfect alignment on reassembly I no longer skip this step. Twice I've been burned with a couple of unseated keys.

I would much rather spend the extra few minutes up front to perfectly re-align each dome to its switch housing notches than take the chance on misalignment and have to unscrew everything again. And for the most part I am dealing with 45g Type Heaven domes which are broken up into far more individual pieces of rubber than the Realforce where most of the rubber is connected together.

It's tedious, but start with a clean workspace and know that the springs want to jump about and double up with one another.

@Hypersphere, I saw your WTB a few days back and I'm curious, how did you lose your spacebar spring?

[Hypersphere]

@RexS: No idea how I lost the spacebar spring. I had a RF87U disassembled for many months and had used it as a donor for 55g domes. Although I kept it in a box and had small parts in separate plastic bags, somehow the spacebar spring got separated from the other parts. I've installed the Silencing Rings and done dome swaps in a number of RF and HHKB boards as well as a Novatouch with no problems, but that one RF ended up missing a spacebar spring. Luckily, someone on GH had an extra. The spring has been duly installed in the RF87U along with all 45g domes and silencing rings.

[Elk]

Apparently it was the switch housings : on those specific spots, they are very slightly wider. Unfortunately I didn't have anything thin enough to wrap around the plungers to verify... I guess i'll have to settle with this :/

Glad to know that the mystery may have been solved at last. Just to clarify -- are you saying that the diameter of the switch housing cylinder is slightly larger for some of the keys than for others?

What about the fit of the housing to the plate? This is what I was thinking about before. I've had some of the housings pop out of the plate when pushing out the sliders.

Apparently yes, any plungers installed on those specific housings will wobble more and click on their own. I tried with a sample cherrymx red switch on the back and reproduced the noise this way.

The switch housing fit on the plate is firm -- the only ones that pop out are the ones with stabilizers which are not making any odd sounds anyway.

I have to conclude the tolerances on the NT wrt to those parts are somewhat lax...

I'll get hold of some PTFE tape tonight and try to wrap it around the plungers to see if it improves things. Otherwise I'll have to move those housings to someplace else on the top right corner that I seldom use.

[Muirium]

I think moving the housings to a seldom used area is the best idea. Then try the tape, and if it doesn't improve things, no big deal.

Like Hyper, I lost a spacebar spring once. It must have wandered off when I removed the spacebar, without remembering it was there! I've no idea where it went. Fortunately Bram at CM sent me a replacement. Topre doesn't feel quite right with a light spacebar. That big spring is subtle but essential, I find. Even if it is a mild hazard when you're swapping around spacebars.

[XMIT]

I wonder if Bram at CM has taken notice of this, and if we'll ever see a factory-silenced Novatouch. I imagine that, with good tooling (e.g. symmetrical cutting from good sides instead of a punch), that these rings could be produced via a means other than laser cutting at quantity. This would reduce their cost quite a lot.

[Hypersphere]

Wish I had been able to detect the click in two keys on my NT before putting it all back together. I might have tried Mu's suggestion of moving the switch housings to seldom-used positions on the board, such as Pause/Break or Print Screen in my case. The click is subtle, but now that the other keys on the board are so quiet, the clickers stand out.

@Elk: I agree with Mu that moving the housings is probably the better idea. Wrapping the sliders with tape could precipitate other problems. However, if you try the tape, please let us know how it works for you.

BTW, I have noticed a similar phenomenon in my V60-MTS Quiet Click keyboard. Most of the keys do not click, but some of them do, although not consistently. This is one reason why I prefer the V60-MTS Click version -- all the keys click with a vengeance!

[Muirium]

I wonder if Bram at CM has taken notice of this, and if we'll ever see a factory-silenced Novatouch. I imagine that, with good tooling (e.g. symmetrical cutting from good sides instead of a punch), that these rings could be produced via a means other than laser cutting at quantity. This would reduce their cost quite a lot.

I did point him to Hyper's work and suggest something like this for the (assumed) next gen NovaTouch. No response on that point. Read into it as you like! My guess is CM is either barred from doing "Type S" style damping by their contract with Topre, or that they're on this. I've no way to tell.

[nipe]

I couldn't wait for the EU group buy. Installed the rings today and OMG what a difference! They are expensive but totally worth it.

Wish I had been able to detect the click in two keys on my NT before putting it all back together. I might have tried Mu's suggestion of moving the switch housings to seldom-used positions on the board, such as Pause/Break or Print Screen in my case. The click is subtle, but now that the other keys on the board are so quiet, the clickers stand out.

@Elk: I agree with Mu that moving the housings is probably the better idea. Wrapping the sliders with tape could precipitate other problems. However, if you try the tape, please let us know how it works for you.

Unfortunately I now experience the same problem with a few keys making click-sounds. I made several attempts to realign the domes and springs and switching sliders with no success, always the same keys making the sound. So I guess you are right that it's the housing causing it. I'll leave it for now and see how annoying it is, perhaps it solves itself over time. Otherwise I'll probably take your advice and switch the housings with some rarely used keys.

[nipe]

I've two NovaTouches and have been in and out of them five or six times, for my review, LED work and lastly Hyper's rings.

A little off topic but may I ask what kind of LED work you are referring to?

[Muirium]

Installing a Caps Lock LED:

http://deskthority.net/post192606.html#p192606

[nipe]

Thank you that was exactly what I was hoping for. I love minimalism but missing the caps lock LED is a little too minimalistic.

[Muirium]

It was a dumb choice on CM's part to prioritise their caps over the actual intended use of the keyboard! The prototype worked fine, and the final version has everything in place for a caps lock LED besides the LED itself *and* the irritating little resistor. It's a right mess.