Reducing key travel distance on Cherry MX switches?

I've read that with Cherry MX Reds and Blacks you usually bottom out with most keystrokes.
Given my past - never used a mechanical keyboard, only rubber domes and my MS Sidewinder X6 has half height keycaps - I'm likely to bottom out. So to decrease the travel distance and lower the level of fatigue during longer writing sessions (papers for University and such) I thought about o-ring mods (not with the intent of lowering the noise, but the travel distance).

I would like to pair the new Cherry MX Silent switches of the Corsair Strafe RGB with a set of o-rings (quieter key strokes + shorter travel distance).

Would there be any downsides to this?

Note: I'm aware that I asked for advice on GPU VRAM size with the intent to buy a new GPU but my current GPU happens to work fine, while my keyboard is ~8years old and has a few broken keys (multimedia only, but still). It's not that I don't appreciate the advice when I happen to not buy an item which I got advice for, it's just that my priorities can suddenly change. I still appreciate any advice very much.

Yeah you can usually put two o rings on per switch which will shorten the travel significantly and still register the presses.

As much as I am sure you want the silent switchs I cannot recommend corsair keyboards at all, their QA is junk and their customer service is the all time worst I have ever encountered.

Other linear or even tactile, though not clicky, are quiet on their own. Most of the noise is from the long up stroke so two o rings shortening the stroke will bring down the over all noise as well as shorten the travel. The harder the spring though the harder the upstroke hitting the switch house and thus louder it will be.

It is all a bit of compromise, harder spring will help with the bottom out a lot, but harder springs will increase the return speed and thus noise, but o rings will shorten the travel and lower that noise again.

There are clips that I think GMK make that silence the upstroke too and shorten the travel, but not sure if they are compatible with o rings. Sorry about all the edits.

I will say however the best option if you can fund them is linear MX Greys, 80g weight easy to get used to and not bottom out. The extra travel of leaving them without orings will help you get used to the 4mm travel and you will soon not be pressing them hard enough to bottom out as you get used to the travel. Still the upstrokeupstroke will be harder though so look into the upstroke silencing clips, and leave out the o rings. You will soon be typing almost completely silently but they are hard to find and almost certainly going to be expensive.

I use O-Rings on my mech keyboards, works fine, I haven't noticed any downsides of the many years of doing this.

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The customer service wouldn't be a problem, since I would buy from Amazon and let them deal with it in case of a defect.
Before the Strafe I was thinking about getting the G.Skill Ripjaws KM780 RGB but eventhough it has USB passthrough AND dedicated media keys I don't like the overall appearance.

As for the MX Greys: it's already a bitch getting decent accessories for mechanical keyboards here without having to order from overseas or hefty shipping-fees, I doubt that I can find a keyboard in Germany/Austria with those switches + backlight.

You seem to have had bad experiences with Corsair. Would you mind to elaborate on that?

Oh... Well story time kids.

LEDs started dying after a few months, this should not happen so I filed an RMA. Get approved and paid €50 to insure and ship to middle fucking nowhere Europe. A week goes by. Not a word. Nothing. So I poke them, hey did you get my board yet a few day more, oh yeah we got it. Well thanks for telling me, not like this has so far cost me 200 plus at this stage for the board, shipping and more shipping. So I'm am a little annoyed all ready at the level of service.

2 more weeks go by not a word. So I poke them again, oh yeah about that we don't have any more k95s to send out to you at the moment, end of conversation... *Eh okay? Well when are you getting them back in? a day or two more. We don't know. Well great. Okay I wait a mother week and poke them again. We have no eat on new boards. Bearing in mind this is at the height of the new RGB board roll out, every reviewer has one for free, stores have plenty of stock so why not send me one of those. Hell even a k70 rgb would egual the value of the non rgb k95 just send me one of those, but no.

So by now it is 4 or 5 weeks and still no eta and they will not say a word without prompting. I am pissed now. So I demand a refund.

That worked great. Bought the board in Europe, with euros, RMAd in europe, by corsair Europe. They refund me the current dollar value which is less that I paid and not in euros, all ready fuming now. But there is more. It is a fucking check, in dollars, for less than I paid. So now I have to pay the lodging fees, the conversion fees and do it all throughnmy bank. Great thanks a fucking bunch. On top of all of this the 50 I paid in shipping to get it to them and start this mess in motion? Nope that is money lost.

So I am down on the purchase price and lost then shipping, yup they did not send me a shipping label.

And over all they were just rude. I cannot stress this enough, FUCK CORSAIR.

Edit: it was boughtnthrough amazon they sent me to corsair so that is out.

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Yeah... Forget big name companies they have long since forgotten the meaning of RMA and replaced it with "well I think RMA means harassment right?" Get something like a wasd or das keyboard you'll have a better experience.

That sounds terrible. Have you asked them for a free-shipping label or did they refuse to send you one? If it still has warranty I would refuse to pay shipping and demand a free-shipping label.

The non-RGB really have a bad reputation for having terrible QA on their LEDs.

The way they handled the refund is outright unprofessional. Why the hell were they assuming sending you a check for the US price in the US currency was an okay thing to do? Have you tried getting in touch with their customer support or someone on Twitter/reddit (George from Corsair is both)?

Damn, I was hoping I could avoid this by buying from Amazon.

@SoulFallen Neither of them have backlight and WASD charges extra for any other switches than MX Blues and Blacks and the das only has Blues and Browns. The prices for those (I'd see them as fairly basic and plain) seem a bit high.

just get some big ass rings

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They told me straight upni had to pay the shipping, no label. It was under warranty, bought it new, less than a half a year old. George messaged me after I told this story on reddit too a while back, said sorry but too little too late in my books. Never buying anything from them and actively tell others not to of they are thinking of it. I told george this and said I want nothing to do with them ever again. Screw those guys. I will be happy when they are out of business and if I can help that I will.

After that I went for my original choice of board that I could not afford before and saved to get it. Filco, solid as a rock, not fancy or anything but built for survive anything.

Also in my book leds in general in keyboards seem to be problematic, unless you have user replaceable SIP socketed leds. And you inky get those by building the board yourself.

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That sucks.
I found an RMA case on Corsair's forum. A guy was supposed to pay $150 to get his H110i GT RMA'd. Corsair employee responded and said he took care of the shipping problem. No words though how the actual RMA was handled.
http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=148867
For that price he could just buy a new one. Quite enraging. Good thing he didn't have to but still.

In another thread of the Corsair forum someone with a "Corsair Product Guru" status stated that shipping costs (in case of an RMA) must be paid but Corsair would pay them back.
http://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?t=94432

I don't get the whole "you have to pay for the shipping of a faulty product" thing. How is this consumer-friendly?

Customer support is a factor that many Tech Youtubers don't care about since they just contact people like CorsairGeorge or EVGAJakob. Linus once tried to get the broken camera glass on his HTC fixed. As a normal customer it would've been a hassle, while if he contacted someone directly at HTC as Linus the LMG-guy, not Linus the ordinary customer, it would have been replaced in no time.
Same is with prices: "this is an amazing product", yeah, but you got it for free, how does the price hold up to that?

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This has gotten quite off topic, but yes product reviews are almost so dar removed from the reality of the thing that some of them are worthless as reviews. The whole getting the product for free thing adds a new layer to it too, I frequently see reviewers practically throw the item around not in the name of endurance testing but simply because they got it for free, just a complete lack of regard for true testing.

It still irks me to see the corsair ads and them being lauded and promoted by all of the YouTube's when they are getting an insular fake version of the consumer experience, the don't have to deal with availability or price, things just show up and they mess with them for what 20 minutes at most? And I have seen reviewers plain faced say yeah it showed up broken so I asked for another one and still give it glowing reviews, case in point a certain youtubers corsair neutron drive, it fucking caught fire and he still promotes them heavily.

Either way back on the subject of the keyboard. I pretty much got everything relevant out in my first post before the derailment.

What specific things do you want from the board? You mentioned USB pass through, media controls and RGB.

Yeah. it derailed quite a bit. One reason why I like TekSyndicate's reviews is they buy a lot (if not most) of the things they review.

I just started a Chat with Amazon's customer service to ask how they deal with defective Corsair products. I'll give you a feedback as soon as I can.

Edit/update:
So, the chat was very helpful. In short: if you buy it from Amazon (no 3rd party retailer) Amazon has to deal with it. Not Corsair.

Quote from the guy I was chatting with (in German, concerning the Corsair Strafe RGB that's sold and shipped by Amazon):

Bei diesem Produkt ist der Verkauf und Versand über Amazon. Das bedeutet, das Amazon selbst 2 Jahre für die Gewährleistung zuständig ist. Sie melden sich also direkt bei uns, nicht bei Corsair.

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Cherry MX Silent switches are already designed to prevent bottoming out so I personally don't see adding o-rings on top of that as necessary.

Also IMO they already feel like they have a giant o-ring underneath, not my cup of tea but they are silent.

With Amazon dealing with in case of any defects I think I'll give it a try (in stock on 18.Jan, so I can still cancel the order if I find something better).

Regarding my requirements on a new keyboard:
RGB backlighting
dedicated media buttons would be nice but the FN keys will do too)
looks
short travel distance (either half height keycaps or o-rings)

@SLOWION
The noise-reducation is a nice bonus, but not why I was thinking of using o-rings. I want a shorter overall travel-distance (I'm used to my MS Sidewinder X6 with half height keycaps and can't stand on the Logitech keyboard I have in the living room).

What do you dislike about the feel of the MX Silent switches? Can you describe it?

My last keyboard was a SideWinder X4. My current keyboard is a SteelSeries 6Gv2 with Cherry MX Black switches and it's my first mechanical keyboard. I have written about 20 papers for university courses and other topics.

I have never experienced any level of fatigue after typing.

I know this is very subjective, but how long did it take you to get used to the mechanical switches and type fluently and without errors?

A while. Going from the low profile keys on the X4 to a full height mechanical is a very big change. However, in my case another factor was that the 6Gv2 has a slightly different key layout when compared to the X4, which still causes me to occasionally mess up.

About a month ago, I cleaned my keyboard for the very first time and went back to the X4 for a day. I have to say that the difference between the two after using a mechnical for two years is very noticeable and I definitely prefer the mechanical.

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Have you tried getting a low-profile keycap set to make the 6Gv2 more similar to the X4?

Damnit, I can't decide between the MX Silent and Brown....gnah!
Edit: scratch that, I ordered the MX Silent version (if I don't like it I can always send it back).
Edit: scratch that too, canceled the MX Silent and ordered the MX Browns.
Edit: sigh canceled the order again to get the MX Silent....I hate this indicisiveness....

i have a varmilo TKL with browns and a logitech g910+ with browns and o-rings, and I can tell you they don't really feel any different. At all. At one point I also tried a 6gv2 but IMMEDIATELY returned it because of the different key layout.

G*7*10+, right?

How is the key layout different on the Steelseries?
Not different how? No softer bump when bottoming out or no noticable reduction in travel distance?