Hello fellow keyboard enthusiasts,

I am looking to modify most, if not all, of my keyboards that have Cherry MX switches. I want to place some O-rings on them so I don't bottom out my keys.

What is the best size for me to use and what hardness would you suggest?

It depends on what effect you are trying to achieve. If you want to quiet down the keyboard and soften the landing, get soft o-rings, ie in 40A or 50A durometer. If you want to quiet down the keyboard but keep a hard landing, get hard ones (70 - 90A durometer)... however their noise dampening won't be as good as the soft ones'.

If you want to avoid reducing key travel, get 5mm (inner diameter) x 1.5mm thick o-rings, they are the thinnest o-rings that people have successfully tried. (Going too thin, like 1mm thick, is useless / has no effect).
If you want to reduce keytravel, get thick o-rings, like 5mm x 2mm or 5mm x 2.5mm, depending on your preference.

I use o-rings to soften the landing, and I want to keep my key travel unaffected as much as I can, so I use 40A durometer o-rings, either 5x1.5mm for metric, or the slightly thicker 008 size which is more common in the USA, such as the ones sold by wasdkeyboards, which has very cheap (around $3) wordwide shipping by the way.

This may be bad but for the time being I have made use of my old membrane keyboards and turned the membrane part(s) into o-rings. I like the idea of keeping the harder feel to bottoming out of keys but would still like to reduce the amount of key travel.

I will buy some of the harder o-rings first and if I don't like them I will grab some of the 40A o-rings off of WASD's website.

Thank you for the information sordna and I wish you good luck in your future keyboard collecting.

In an old Ripster article on the Forum That Must Not Be Named, it was mentioned that he tentatively had good luck using dental elastics for cherry cap dampening and specifically mentioned the Ram which I looked up as part 630-0051, Ex./Heavy 1/4" 6.35 mm, not sure if that is the internal or external measurement.

My Orthodontist sells the "American Orthodontics Elastomerics Wildlife Series" and Ram seems to map Jaguar in that line. Not sure if the Ram turned out to be a good fit or not.

Latex might not be the right way to go, EPDM rubber like WASD sells might be better for the long term. Not sure how much longer they'd last than dental latex, taking all the keys off and replacing them all isn't something I'll want to do very soon.

Never got round to trying this but my recent acquisition of a RK-9000RE is making me want to try it since it's quiet could be a bit quieter which was a big part of why I got the reds.

I think it's called Geekhack.net.

Anyhoo I liked the RAM the best.
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?3135 ... l-Band-Mod
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ripster55/5776481744/



but longterm real orings are better. IF you like it. I didn't and it seems to be 50/50 with others that try it.

Thanks for the link, I was looking at an older version of that apparently, that said you were going to come back and update it later, huh. So... If Rams work pretty well, wonder if that 1/4" measurement in the catalog is outside dimension as isn't 3/16" the correct size? Just trying to make sure before I start trying to hit up my orthodontist for some. I can try what my son as now, the packages I see laying around are gorilla, tortoise, cheetah, which are listed as 3/16" / 5 mm in medium, heavy and extra heavy. Maybe best to use the ortho bands for testing and get the real o-rings if I decide to take the plunge. Have to look around if anyone sells them cheaper than WASD, just cause, well, I'm cheap.

If you are paying $5K for braces just ask for them all and test yourself.

What are you, a sheep or a RAM?

Looks like I need to be a Jaguar in my case, which should be able to tackle/eat a sheep OR a ram.

I use white "non-latex" "orthodontic elastics", "3/16 medium" from another brand than in Ripster's thread, but I have those too and they are practically the same.
They have been holding up quite well since summer 2010, when I got them, and I have been using that keyboard as my daily home keyboard for about 75% of that time. I don't think that latex rubber would be as durable.

I have tried them with Cherry doubleshot key caps, with Cherry blue and brown switches. I find them to reduce key travel too much on Cherry browns, but to be just right for blues.

Thanks for the input. So we really don't have any cheetah (3/16" extra heavy) to spare around the house. I can stop by the orthodontist and getting some extra, look like they're 100 per pack, if they fit. I did find some packs of gorilla & tortoise (3/16" medium & heavy) so that's enough to experiment with & see if they fit. If they do fit hopefully I can get some cheetah packs, ideally multiple but even one might be enough for one 104 key keyboard as I could always use the medium or heavy ones on the less used keys. But I'm getting ahead of myself, first to try the fit of what I have.

Well I did the top (numbers etc backspace) with the small number of cheetahs I had available. Definitely took the edge off the keycap thack noise, well except for the backspace, that might need some more help. See if I can get out to the orthodontist today to get more.

I got a set of 70Ds from amazon. They reduce the key travel to the point that I almost *have* to bottom out to reach the activation point--sure, it's a softer bottoming, but still doesn't give me room to back off on my own accord. For a moment I liked the difference, but then I realized what a farce it was. Sure, MX Blues sound like chicklets rattling around in a box, but so what? They feel good, and are easy on my fingers, and improve my typing. Reds are good too, for gaming even preferable, but for fast typing I like the feedback that Blues give. IMHO, screw o-rings; learn how to type.

Well for me the o-rings are to reduce noise so I can use a mechanical at work without bothering folks I'm talking with. Activation point doesn't seem to be a problem with the reds, I'm just trying to reduce the thack a bit so I can have a nice quiet mechanical comparable in noise to my laptop keyboards. At this point I don't plan to put o-rings on my blues, might try it just not a priority.

Man I read a really good article on kbdmania I think (can't find the url yet) where they put a tiny piece of silicon right in to the switch's sleeve (the part wich is mounted on the pbc) that dumpered the switch pretty well and it hasn't a huge impact on the key travel.

I like the solution but the downside is that you have to disasamble the housing to put that thing in.

I just bought a cm quickfire rapid with reds and a set of 50A o-rings. I have received the o-rings and still waiting on the keyboard. anyone here have o-rings on mx-reds? opinions? everything in this thread is about mx blues and I would like to read about other switches with o-rings. thanks everyone!

As I state above, I'm in the process of putting "American Orthodontics Elastomerics Wildlife Series" Cheetah, 3/16" / 5 mm extra heavy dental elastic bands on my Rosewill RK-9000RE with cherry red MX switches. I like the red, having to adjust to them a bit. The whole idea for me was to get quiet MX switches. When I got & started using the RK-9000RE, I found the switches to be quiet but the keycaps are thacking a bit more than I'd like. I did one row and found the thack is noticeably reduced. Well except again the backspace key, which may need more help along with the other longer keys with stabilizer bars. So far I like it and consider it an improvement to the keyboard.

Did you try hitting on any of the Dental Hygienists?

That's what a REAL Cheetah Playah would do!

Thanks TF! I am impatiently waiting for the board to come from coolermaster. when I get it and do the o-ring mod I will post here with my experience.

domoaligato wrote:Thanks TF! I am impatiently waiting for the board to come from coolermaster. when I get it and do the o-ring mod I will post here with my experience.

YW, I'll be interested to hear of your experience with it, I nearly went for a cm quickfire rapid with reds but jumped on the RK-9000RE when the $64 deal came up. The CM cost a bit more and looked just a tad game-y for me, but it is tenkeyless, time will tell if I regret not going TKL.

ripster wrote:Did you try hitting on any of the Dental Hygienists?

That's what a REAL Cheetah Playah would do!

Typical internet response, it ain't easy being Cheetahy...

Edited as this is all Offtopic: I have heard alot of people debranded the QUICKFIRE off the spacebar or put another black spacebar on it.
anyone happen to know of a cheap way to get a PBT spacebar compatible with a CM storm QF rapid?

I only found this one and it is ABS
http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php? ... &pid=sb_u2

I was looking for somewhere that sold a Black PBT spacebar only.

Edel wrote:Man I read a really good article on kbdmania I think (can't find the url yet)

How about now?

domoaligato wrote:Edited as this is all Offtopic: I have heard alot of people debranded the QUICKFIRE off the spacebar or put another black spacebar on it.
anyone happen to know of a cheap way to get a PBT spacebar compatible with a CM storm QF rapid?

I only found this one and it is ABS
http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php? ... &pid=sb_u2

I was looking for somewhere that sold a Black PBT spacebar only.

Well, back in the day we'd be happy to scrounge one from Unicomp so EK offering one is pretty amazing. You can always buy a handful of them.

Contact Feng, IMSTO, or the other Chinese triad resellers. Anything Filco compatible will work. They may try to sell a metal one, I'd be wary of that.

It's a shame skcheng stopped hitting forums before dental bands became the rage. (He was a dentist)

I'm still waiting for the definitive answer on what o-rings are best so I only try once. Everytime I start messing with switches I get ALPS fever and want to start modifying leafs and getting way out of control... lately I aint nobody dat got time for dat.

Ran by my orthodontist today & picked up a couple of 100 count bags of cheetah dental bands, with the few I had already should be enough for me to finish the RK-9000RE and another full size board if I decide to. To beat to mess with it tonight but I'm good on dental bands for now.

didja wrote:I'm still waiting for the definitive answer on what o-rings are best so I only try once.

40A durometer, EPDM o-rings from WASDkeyboards are the best. They now offer them in 2 different thicknesses, the new thinner ones have very negligible travel reduction.

http://www.wasdkeyboards.com/index.php/ ... eners.html

Shipping is cheap, even internationally it's like $3.

Finished putting cheetah dental band on the RK-9000RE main group of keys (letters etc) and liking the results. Not going to do any more for now. I had originally intended to do all of them but since the other keys are much less often used (by me), don't feel a pressing need to worry about those for now. Pretty pleased with the results so far.

didja wrote:It's a shame skcheng stopped hitting forums before dental bands became the rage. (He was a dentist)

SKCheng used his dental skills to PERFECT the Buckling Spring PING mod with Dental Floss...
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:9761


And the Nut/Bolt Mod with A Dental Drill.


When Geekhack was MOAR than putting some colored keys on your keyboard or turning Korean.

Still my favorite Drill used for the Nut/Bolt mod:
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title= ... post522384

off wrote:

Edel wrote:Man I read a really good article on kbdmania I think (can't find the url yet)

How about now?

Can't find it... but will post it here!