Alps Tips

[paecific.jr]

My boss and I found a pair of Dell AT101W keyboards at work. We are now finding different uses for them. I the keyboard purist am using it as is and enjoying the rather clicky sound of what is said to be a tactile switch.

My boss, on the other hand, wants to mod his keyboard. He is looking at using a carbon fiber wrap to skin it, removing the click leaf, and painting the plate. He also wants some rubber keycaps as a modern gaming keyboard has. Any ideas? I have done some searching and have come up empty.

Also is there a way to dampen the sound of the keycap bottoming out? That is his main complaint and why he won't use it at the office.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

These are the only rubber gamer keycaps I know of for Alps switches:

[wiki]Tai-Hao rubber double-shot series[/wiki]

Is this what you meant, or did he want an entire keyboard of rubber keys?

As for the sound, surely he'd want a keyboard where he can type like a boss?

[paecific.jr]

Those are perfect, do you know anywhere where you can actually buy them?
As to your opinion about the sound, I like it, he wants to have a quieter keyboard since we have an open office.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

If I still had either sample pack I'd give it to you, but I gave both away years ago.

This is the current product:

http://www.tai-hao.com/catalog/ins.php?index_id=65

This seems to be the older version of the new design (around September 2015 I learnt about them from Tai-Hao) — they seem to have fixed the 'D' since!

https://mechkb.com/tai-hao-rubber8

I'll check with Tai-Hao next week to see if any Alps versions are available anywhere. What colour preference would you have? The ones that came with/come with APC keyboards are always orange, while I also got a green pack (nice!) and the modern ones have a larger colour range.

[paecific.jr]

He says that black would be fine. Thanks for looking into this for us!

[macboarder]

For the switch noise I'd recommend trying Matias Quiet Click switches. Just swapping out the slider reduces the noise level significantly, I'd imagine removing the tactile leaf would help as well.

[Hypersphere]

For the switch noise I'd recommend trying Matias Quiet Click switches. Just swapping out the slider reduces the noise level significantly, I'd imagine removing the tactile leaf would help as well.

Great idea. Although I like the sounds of my Alps switches, I like to quiet down the spacebar -- replacing the stock slider with a Matias Quiet slider does wonders for spacebar silencing.

[paecific.jr]

Where could one buy just the slider?

[Hypersphere]

Where could one buy just the slider?

Mechanicalkeyboards.com had 10-packs of Matias Quiet switches for $7.50, and Matias.ca had packs of 200 switches for $50, but they are currently out of stock at both places. The Matias site says they hope to have them back in stock in May of this year.

[belowgeek]

Are Topre switches still expensive? Or is there any keyboard that you guys can recommend that is a bit affordable.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Depends how you define "expensive" — is the Topre Type Heaven too pricy for you? BTW are you in the right topic?

[codemonkeymike]

@belowgeek You will get more help if you make your own topic for your question.