HHKB Pro JP - Variable force & Silencing mods

[dpanth3r]

Hi everybody !

“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”

I entered the world of funky keyboards (or whatever you prefer calling it) 2 years ago, when I got myself a variable force Topre Realforce 105U.
Last summer, I decided to get myself a HHKB in order to make my desk more ergonomic (HHKB + Trackball).

As I love the ISO return key (and hate its feeble ANSI counterpart), like arrow keys, and enjoy having extra keys to either type in japanese or have custom bindings... I got an HHKB Pro JP from GS4U (and they kindly made JP keysets available at my request, with a discount on the original price ).

Now that I've got you bored, I can unnoticeably get to the serious bits.

My HHKB

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Mod #1 – Variable force
I love my HHKB, but I also love the variable-force feeling of my Realforce...
Thus, after looking for information inside this post (and 002's interesting measurement on the following page ):
http://deskthority.net/try-before-you-b ... tml#p54315

I got my box-cutter/screwdrivers, and started hacking away.

Here are the HHKB original domes, which you get to see after opening your HHKB
(gently, or you might break the controller's connector!) and unscrewing the keyboard PCB:

My HHKB's original innards

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I went through each of the row halves, cutting and replacing appropriate 45g domes with the 35g and 40g cutted from the RF, building the new variable force dome layout on the plastic plate (pay attention to the springs, they can easily get caught into your sleeves and jump around):

My HHKB's new innards

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Here's a snapshot of my RF domes after the Frankenstein moment:

My RF's new innards

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And the HHKB domes (taken after a later disassembly):

Dem sexy domes!

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(I had a other informative pics, but they got lost in an unspeakable moment of SD card death -_-)

In the end, you get a variable force HHKB (35-40-45g) and a uniform Realforce (45g), both in working condition.

The HHKB felt (and still feels) as intended : fantastic — to those who like variable force, that is.
I was a bit worried that one might feel a difference between HHKB and RF domes mixed in the RF — as I saw people arguing they felt different etc. on GH — but in the end it still feels all right and you (at least I) can't really tell they're mixed.

Mod #2 – Rubber-based silencing
(Original idea & tutorial here: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=34972)

I was curious and wanted to try it out...
So I got non-latex orthodontic rubber bands from eBay (4.8mm diameter)

Orthodontic rubber bands

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and started the funfest, removing all the keycaps and the “hammers” which push the domes down, to rubber them up

Hammer + Rubber = Hamber?

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before putting everything back together.

The final feeling was.. okay.
Not as thrilling as I thought it would be, and I didn't quite like the way it reduced the travel distance (and thus overall feeling), though I more or less got used to it after 2 weeks.

Still, I there had to be something better — which is how we conspicuously transition to:

[dpanth3r]

Mod #3 – Foam-based silencing
(Original idea found here: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=349 ... #msg663926)

I liked this idea and wanted to try it out (again!).
Thus, I ordered this http://www.micro-tools.de/en/Camera-Res ... -12cm.html, and some leather hole cutters (you need these sizes: 5/16" + 7/16" / 0.80cm + 1.11cm).

After ensuring the cutters were a good fit etc., step 1 is cutting large (7/16" / 1.11cm) foam disks.
I used (obviously) a cutter, a hammer (hit twice or thrice), some magazines underneath (something which gets cut too, making sure you cut right through the foam), and chose to put the foamy side underneath:

Large cutter

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Foam disks

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When you have enough disks (and extra ones, too, you never know), you can proceed to cutting them, again.
Used the same technique, taking extra time to make sure the small cutter was well centered on the disks.

Small cutter

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Foam rings to rule them all, foam rings to find them, foam rings to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

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If you can still feel your hand after ±400 times hitting cutters with a hammer: Congratulations !
You can know open up your Topre-based keyboard, pull the keycaps, and unclip the hammers.

The next step is, of course, putting the foam onto these dome hammers.
My advice is to make a cut on each ring, with scissors or a nail clipper, because if you don't you'll probably end up stretching the ring or having it sticking everywhere (it's annoying).
I did not, however, cut the rings for keys which have large hammers (return, shift, space, …), in order to make sure the ring stays on.

Fashionable hammer wearing a foam ring

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Hammers scheming world dome-ination

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Yay! You've now spent about 4h playing with sticky foam and plastic pieces.
Take a break and enjoy some freshly brewed coffee/tea. (you have to, it's an important part of the process!)

Now, clip those hammers back, and take some time to play with each of them before putting everything back together.
Push them back and forth, turn the grid up and down, looking for hammers which get stuck or feel sticky...
I did not play enough with those, and had to disassemble everything the following day to change 5 foam rings which caused some keys to have a sticky feeling (one of the rings even got stuck to the plastic frame).

No keys, no life

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Finally, before putting the keycaps back on, ask yourself: do I really need those? Is my precision hardcore enough?
(I had fun typing without the keycaps on, it's not hard if you're used to your keyboard )

The final feeling is, in my humble opinion, far superior to that of the rubber bands mod:
you get a near-original travel length, a softer (kinda “hushed”) sound, and less vibrations.

Mod #4 – Sugru feet
If you don't know what Sugru is, have a look at https://sugru.com — in short, it is an air-cured silicon paste.
I decided to have a bit of fun, and replace the rubber of my HHKB with Sugru while covering the plastic parts with it, too (in order to potentially reduce vibration transmission to my desk… well, ok, I wanted more fun).

Here's the result (not much to explain: “remove the rubber feet and apply Sugru”)

Sugru madness

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I know, it's not really sleek, but it does what I wanted it to : even less vibrations, and no plastic parts making noises when using my keyboard on uneven surfaces (happens).

Hope you had fun reading
Please do not hesitate to ask for more details if you feel this post lacks information (because it probably does)

[Jmneuv]

Lovely those machine innards - thanks for sharing.

Guess you took a deep breath before you cut apart the dome-sheet of your RF.. or did you cut?

One thing i'd be really concerned about would be the durability of the foam, probably everyone knows how evil crumbling rubber-foam feels.
What do you say, do you think the foam is going to last a couple of years?
Other than that i think this mod is brilliant - almost no shortened travel.

The dental ring mod is the same as what the factory does with the original s-type, correct (think i read it has reduced travel too)?

[dpanth3r]

Thank you for the feedback

I did take a deep breath before cutting into my RF (damn, these are expensive, and as I am a student this is non-renewable internship money ^^").
The key to not screwing everything up is to take it slow, and cut with some thick cardboard underneath (cutting through both the dome-sheet and cardboard).

My guess is that this kind of foam is durable: it's the same one which is used inside (d)SLRs do prevent the mirror from breaking when taking pictures, and thus has to withstand worse than keys coming back up.
And yes, the key advantage (apart from making a better craftsman out of myself) is the conservation of travel length.

I haven't had the occasion to open (nor even touch) a type-s, but from what I saw online, the dental mod gives pretty much the same result (although maybe Topre's rings are softer?)

[002]

Great work!
Im curious to know if you had trouble removing the sliders from the switches on the HHKB?
When I tried it, the nub at the top of the slider was too difficult to push back through without damaging it. This wasn't a problem on other boards (such as the ND31BS 10th) as the nub is more rounded.

[dpanth3r]

Thanks! At first I damaged them a bit (not that much though).
I later found that using a flat screwdriver as a lever to pull sliders out helped avoiding such damage, as the slider twists itself a bit when coming out (and can jump quite far!), and that somehow deals less damage than pushing the sliders out.

[Jmneuv]

My guess is that this kind of foam is durable: it's the same one which is used inside (d)SLRs do prevent the mirror from breaking when taking pictures, and thus has to withstand worse than keys coming back up.

That sounds like decent foam .. how good is the dampening compared to the rings anyway?

[dpanth3r]

IMHO rubber is not soft enough – and foam is softer
The dampening is better, and so is the sound (it has a satisfying “textile” feel... hard to describe I guess)

[dirge]

Great work, I love the Japanese boards for the same reason. Need to get one at some point.

[Jmneuv]

Where do topres bottom out anyway? Is it those little feet on the hammer hitting the rubbersheet around the dome?

[002]

Yep, basically - the spring doesn't completely depress either. They make way more noise on the upstroke anyway so it's not really worth trying to dampen the bottoming out.

[Kurk]

A question for the owners of a Japanese HHKB: how hard is it to hit the tiny space bar? With your wrists straight (i.e. not angled in an awkward way) are you still able to hit this key at its vertical center? Or do you kind of hit it at the bottom? I'm asking because I'm considering an alternative layout with a similarly small space bar and I'm concerned that it is not that easy to hit. It feels like it should be a full row further down.

[002]

Look at the shine spot on your existing keyboard's space bar. If it's not in the centre, or very close the centre, then you'll need a bit of time to adjust to a Japanese spacebar, otherwise you should be fine
I hit my space bar off to the left a bit so using a Japanese space bar took some getting used to but it's not that difficult.

[Jmneuv]

Could you remap the japanese input modifiers? Kinda intrigued by the japanese layout now.. (also in regard to importing topre from japan)
So in theory if i found the spacebar too small i would remap the keys next to it as space too.

[dpanth3r]

In my opinion the space key is just perfect (I only hit it right in the centre, so size doesn't really matter ^^)

Well, it's not really of use to me under Windows... but here's a relevant link: http://lifehacker.com/5883003/the-best- ... or-windows
(I personally use a registry key to remap capslock to control on my laptop's keyboard).

For Linux users, you can use Xmodmap and go crazy (but still no combination remapping there).

And, well, tiling WM (awesomewm, in my case) users can have fun too... I remap them as such (all of these are extra keys when comparing JIS keys to ISO / ANSI ones):
Muhenkan (striked arrows) - switch to next layout mode
Henkan (circling arrows) - swap windows (rotate windows in the layout)
Kana - rotate window focus
Underscore (chevrons keycap on mine) - open/close dropdown terminal
Yen (red keycap on mine) - depends (prints fortunes using on-screen notifications...)

[Cafeine]

I'm so getting a JP HHKB... ISO enter key ftw. And I will switch with my RF 88UB depending on mood.

[phetto]

Very nice.

What printing method are those golden legend keycaps?

[002]

They're lasered

[cookie]

I am a bit late but I must say that all this is really great! Well done

[xwhatsit]

My guess is that this kind of foam is durable: it's the same one which is used inside (d)SLRs do prevent the mirror from breaking when taking pictures, and thus has to withstand worse than keys coming back up.

So my guess—from fixing old cameras—is you've got about 20–30 years before it all turns to custard