Dell Peacefoot, or how I learned to stop clacking and love the board

[macboarder]

In an effort to save one of my co-workers from The Rubber Dome Menace™, I suggested the venerable Dell AT102W, of which I had one lying around. There was one tiny obstacle though - he was sharing a room with someone else, so the noise level would be above any acceptable level. Since I've also had a box of Matias' damped tactile switches, I've decided to employ them as a solution to that particular problem. However, instead of replacing whole switches, I opted to just swap out the innards, for two reasons:

1. The presence of an SKCM switchplate made for a cleaner keyfeel (and better sound, even though sound is the opposite of what this undertaking was about).
2. The board was very clean, save from a few small spots of rust on the mounting plate - it looked and felt like it has seen way more storage than usage.

As a proof of concept, I tried combining the sliders, coil and leaf springs, as seen and heard below:



Apologies for the outdoor noises - by the time I got round to working on this project, this was the only decent light source in the area

I took particular liking to the Matias/Alps/Matias and all-Matias mods and decided to go with the latter - it feels awesome! Very clean and generously tactile. Neither the reduced travel nor the softened bottoming out bothered me in the slightest - I think I was enjoying the tactility too much

After finishing the entire board (I put clicky leaf springs from Matias Clicks in the Caps, Scroll and Num Lock switches as I like the idea of those having different keyfeel than the rest) I realized I have to make another one of those just for myself - it was a blast to type on! Despite the damping, the sound still had a presence to it, but not the co-worker upsetting kind.

Once again, apologies for the outdoor noises

Before the board went into full service, I set it aside a Matias Mini Quiet Pro (the earlier white slider kind) and a Dell QuietKey (NMB dome with slider flavored) to see how they compare soundwise:

After handing it over, the response I got was "oh hell yes, this feels just right". Success

[andrewjoy]

Dampened matias sliders no leaf alps everying else

[scottc]

Nice! Seems like a good outcome. Though the Dell Quietkey was a lot louder than expected so I guess it was easy to beat that.

[seebart]

Very nice project, love the name "Dell Peacefoot" BTW.

[macboarder]

Thanks! Now I feel like doing more Alps-based tinkering :]

[oluigenuma]

I have tried Matias sliders in orange alps. The Matias sliders are smaller than Alps sliders which increases wobble. Have you noticed anything regarding this issue? Also iirc the little wings on the Matias leafs are shorter. Did you put paper or anything in there to have that fixed?

[macboarder]

The Matias sliders are smaller than Alps sliders which increases wobble. Have you noticed anything regarding this issue?

I didn't notice anything when typing, but trying to get keycaps mounted was quite unpleasant - they just wiggled all over the place. Stabilized caps were fine though.

Also iirc the little wings on the Matias leafs are shorter. Did you put paper or anything in there to have that fixed?

That is correct, and in fact you can't fit an Alps leaf spring in a Matias shell, but I haven't noticed it causing anything undesirable in this case. However, when I tried a Matias tactile leaf with an Alps slider, it did faintly click, so I'll definitely keep your idea in mind if I end up using Matias parts without their sliders.