Decent Rubber Domes thread

[hansichen]

Well I can tell you for a fact my seven year old daily beater hhkb (45g) still feels A LOT lighter than my new realforce (55g).

Else I would be worried

A keyboard won't age within minutes so if it gets lighter or stiffer over the years your hands would adjust as well. A 30g>45g or 45g>55g change would be way more than I'd expect but it would be a fun thing to compare.

I don't really understand what you're saying. 7 years is not minutes and how my hands adjust is irrelevant, as I am comparing a 7 year old daily beater and a 3 year old daily beater to a new 55g board. I have them side by side (2x HHKB, RF). I have just ordered 2 brand new HHKBs and it will be interesting to see how they stack up one next to the other, but I'd say the difference won't be much. I can not tell the difference between the 3 years old and 7 years old.

At 130+ WPM, my fingers actually get fatigued with 55g Topre domes, whereas I can go for hours on 45g.

As you said: 55g and 45g is a pretty significant weight change that can tire your fingers. 7 years isn't too much in a keyboard lifetime (I think at 50M actuations a normal worker would need over 20 years to reach the 50 million actuations) so I'd be very negatively surprised to see such a drastic change within this period of time. Whereas a change from 45g to 48g would be measurable but probably barely noticeable.

I guess in the end factors like storage, production cycle and other factors will have more influence on the weight than how much it was used. Either way: a side by side comparison of boards with different usage over the years would be interesting (eg a new pro 1 and a heavily used pro 1).

[seebart]

If you don't mind full size KB's try the Olivetti ANK 25-101, a truly great keyboard:

wiki/Olivetti_ANK_25-101

[adhoc]

I also had a 10 year old HHKBP1 next to a then brand new HHKBP2 and apart from the case discoloration (which doesn’t happen with P2 anymore, really), I did not notice a significant difference in typing.

Either way, rubber fatigue is not something I’d be worried about with these boards.

[Tias]

There is a major difference in feel between a HHKB with stock 45g domes and a RF with stock 55g domes. Indeed, I find a noticeable difference between each of these combinations:

HHKB 45g - RF87U 45g

HHKB 45g - RF87U 55g

HHKB 55g - RF87U 45g

HHKB 55g - RF87U 55g

About a month ago I bought my first Realforce, a 45g 88UB, and 2 months before that I got an FC66C as my first Topre board. From most of the discussions I had read about the FC660C, most of them stated that the 45g FC660C felt the heaviest compared to a 45g HHKB and an 45g Realforce.

To my suprise my stock 88UB feels A LOT more heavier than my FC660C. Would be quite interesting to measure the switch weighting of the 88UB and the FC660C and see if there is a significant differens between them.

[Muirium]

Does the Leopold have a plate? Yes or no will make a qualitative difference. Its absence certainly does in the HHKB, which feels the lightest 45g of all.

[Hypersphere]

Yes, the Leopold FC660C has plate-mounted Topre switches.

[Tias]

Does the Leopold have a plate? Yes or no will make a qualitative difference. Its absence certainly does in the HHKB, which feels the lightest 45g of all.

The FC660C also has a plate. Before I bought the FC660C I tried a friends stock HHKB, and now afterwards when I can compare it to the FC660C the difference was very noticeable. In my case the difference is the same between my Leopold and my Realforce. I would at some point like to try a 55g 87U to see how it compares to the 45g 88UB. From what I understand from all post regarding that subject, the difference between 45 and 55g is a quite huge.

[Dingster]

If you don't mind full size KB's try the Olivetti ANK 25-101, a truly great keyboard:

wiki/Olivetti_ANK_25-101

How hard are these to find, looks pretty baller.

[Spearra]

My choice would be the "Perixx PX-1900". It's a scissor switch keyboard with 3.8mm of total travel so you don't bottom out nearly as hard as say, a outright flat keyboard like modern Apples. While not NKRO, it can go over 6 and can do the QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG test and only misses the Z. All the other letters register. From personal use, I used the entire A - ' row of keys and it managed that whole row at the same time without failure. I like to whip it out occasionally for rhythm games involving more than 6 keys or so. So for all intents and purposes it might as well be NKRO.

It has a decent metal back plate in the keyboard and a cult-following build quality for the price that being $40 USD. When it is out of stock, scalpers sell it for $70+ USD. So if you see it more than roughly $40 USD and you intend on buying one, wait a bit, Perixx will restock them!

The flip out feet are rubberized which is a nice touch. Being that it is a rubber-dome-over membrane keyboard, you can use compressed air to clean out the debris without it screwing anything up. It also has spill-resistance which is highly scoffed at as a "I don't ever spill my drink because I'm careful therefore nobody needs it" type of situation. Funnily enough that also applies to scissor switch keyboards. "I hate them therefore everyone should hate them". Out side of the subjective things about the keyboard, the not flat, but still slim form, the scissor switches, etc. The only real objective problem I have with them is that they seem prone to factory defects which, granted, Perixx has a decent warranty so you could just pester them until you get a good one so its more of a minor annoyance if anything.

Its no Topre let's make that perfectly clear. But for those small group of people who really love those scissor-switches and wants a great one, here ya go. Don't let other people tell you otherwise what you should do with your money. Their life choices (generally) won't get in the way of yours so you do you.

Truth be told the THOCC of Topres even the silenced ones, at 4am in the morning sometimes pisses off my colleagues. So sometimes I whip out the PX-1900 as scissor switches are famous for being EXTREMELY SILENT. While not as silent as an modern Apple keyboard, it is kind of a diminishing returns type of situation if you want your keyboard to be that silent. But there are situations where that is helpful no doubt about that. Every* keyboard has their place. (Except those lazer projection ones, those can burn in development hell and you might as well use a touch screen at that point which is basically the same thing but more developed.)

Best of all its still produced to this day (at least for now). Oh right, and unlike Apple modern keyboards, PX-1900's keycaps have a slight contour to them so touch typing isn't ungodly. They also have a semi-regular amount of space in between the keys so you can actually hit a key without actuating an entire cluster in the process.

Okay I'm done. I'm garbage at condensing information in 2 paragraphs or less!

[keycap]

I tend to hate the rubber domes that have a really dry, frictiony feel to them, and that awful creaky flex thing with the top plastic plate that they use. The latter is the worst, to me. For this reason, I really like BTC dome with slider because they don't have that feel at all. But if I had to choose my favorite rubber dome board that I've tried, easily mitsumi hybrids. Not as prized as BTCs but I REALLY like them for some odd reason.

I used to want to try Topre, but after getting a pristine AEK II a little while ago... sorry Topre, never letting go of my SKCM Salmons.

[TheInverseKey]

Honeywell 101WN is a great board that you can find for cheap on fleabay. Currently have access to a NOS one and they are super tactile and there is no real mushy bottom out. Additionally, the stabilizers that the board use don't rattle too much and feel very solid. Top tear rubber dome board in my book.