Gasket mount, polycarbonate plate, linears, PBT caps. Sound has a hollow ring behind every keypress, like there is a small room under the board, and it is worst on the right hand side away from the daughterboard. Tape costs me nothing since I have painters tape in a drawer. Plate foam and a PE sheet would be about 15 delivered. I would rather do one thing, listen for a week, then do the next.
The ring is case resonance, and the fact that it is worse on the far side from the daughterboard supports that, because that is the biggest uninterrupted air gap. A strip of self adhesive shelf liner or a piece of neoprene sitting in the bottom of the case does more for that than anything mounted on the PCB. Cheap, invisible, easily removed.
Cut a piece slightly undersized so it does not push against the PCB and defeat the gasket mount. Learned that the hard way.
Before spending anything, swap keycaps if you have a second set. Going from thin ABS to thick PBT or vice versa changes the sound more than any foam decision, and you already own the test.
Also check the gasket socks or pads are all actually compressed evenly. One that has slipped leaves the plate floating on that side and you get a localised ring.
@faderpush · 2mo ago · 3 replies
Do the tape first, because it is free and completely reversible, but set your expectations correctly: tape does not make a board deeper, it makes it poppier and higher pitched. Three layers of painters tape across the back of the PCB, avoiding the connectors, takes ten minutes.
If what you want is less hollowness rather than a different flavour of clack, the ordered list by effect per dollar is roughly: something soft in the bottom of the case under the PCB, then a PE sheet between plate and switches, then plate foam, then tape. Plate foam is the one that most reliably kills a hollow ring, at the cost of some of the character people buy an aluminium case for in the first place.
One thing at a time and a week between is exactly the right approach, and record ten seconds of typing before each change on the same phone in the same position. Your ear will lie to you within about two days.
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@node_red_ned · 2mo ago
Recording it is the tip. Every mod sounds better immediately after you do it, because you just spent an hour on it.
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@blown_cap · 2mo ago
Did the tape, recorded before and after. Higher pitched, slightly poppier, hollowness untouched. Which is exactly what you said would happen.
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