i know it starts with picking the right type of keys, generally for quieter mechanical switches you want either reds, browns (what i wana talk about) and the other color variants of these that only differ in actuation force. blues and their variants are already out cause they have an audible click.
so the popular suggestion is to add O ring and there are various types of hardness and size usually either .02mm up to .04mm in about 3 steps of hardness to softness. basically hard, medium, soft. with the highest hardness having the most 'shock adsorbing' ability and i assume softening of the sound produced.
You can go further and buy different keycaps, usually different materials will sound different, the range of materials vary alot but generally it's either ABS plastic or PTB, but i've seen brass and other exotic materials for example of massdrop. Not to mention there are different keycap shapes as well..
So here's where i hope someone can shed some light, what more can i do to make they keys quieter? the problem im having is not the key press but the key rebound making a bunch of noise. i currently have browns with the hardest, largest o-ring and the key rebound / release makes alot of noise. is there any inventive innovative solutions someone has come up with? looking forward to your thoughts kappa
Which mx type? I have browns so they aren't very loud but give the right about of feedback. Really the o-rings just help keep the keys from bottoming out thus making it quieter. I have my keyboard with o-rings installed and there's a noticeable difference. If you type heavily the o-rings will be very useful.
There is a mod to do with making the upstroke quieter, but it is a little involved and is semi debated over its longevity. Looking for reply #34 of this topic https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=50632.0 and onward.
Also look up QMX clips, they only work on PCB mounted switches though so probably wont work for you, worth a look for more ideas.
Keyboard stuff and I was not instantly paged... shame.
I have noticed that different backplates causes a difference in the sound. A nice heavy steel backplate would probably dampen sound a lot better than a plastic backplate or just PCB mounted switches.
If you have a steel backplate, you might be able to dampen it with some sort of tar or vinyl material (much like dynamat is used in car audio, to mass load surfaces), but this would require desoldering all switches to get to the backplate.
You know I have Blues so obviously the sound doesn't bother me much, but make sure your keys are properly lubricated. I had two keys which were not and they sounded much louder than the ones which are so that is also something to think about.
