I've been trying to figure out what kind of rubber the rubber gasking around the pcb was using but i've been unsuccessful so far
it's a secret that apparently the creator 응삼 is not willing to open it to the public. we may never know...
What's this about a gasket? Anyone have a picture?
I knew I was forgetting something, of course the gasket! Such a neat addition. As evilpacket said, it fits around the assembled PCB+plate, resting on the sides of the exposed switches.
I've added it to my goals, I'd like to take mine off and measure it to try and find a replacement. I can't imagine the material is all that crazy, it feels very similar to a WASD keyboard o-ring, though perhaps a bit harder than the red o-rings they stocked. Mine is a bit worn around the screws so I've been hesitant to remove it for fear of breaking it. I've heard without it the keyboard can have a bit of rattle -- I believe it's used to keep the plate tight against the case. In my own theory where the sandwich-style mounting is meant to allow the plate some room to flex, it makes sense that you would want something soft that wouldn't impede that but that would keep things tight together to avoid rattling. I'll do a bit more examination when I have the board unassembled, there are definitely areas of the edges of the plate that are more worn and I wonder if the mounting has something to do with it.
On that note I'll also add a quick tip to assembling the keyboard, the screws need to be tightened evenly to get things to fall in place properly.
oh yeah. and for the secret information behind message boards and foreign languages...
even other members of OTD have stuff they don't know that only the original creator knows. lool
you won't find much info to salvage other than what we can see from the actual board itself
truly phenomenal post though.
Good to know I'm not missing much
Though I'm very surprised the designers wouldn't be more interested in explaining the work that was put into the design and manufacturing.
I'm really interested in seeing the top case from the inside (especially the part where it has contact with the plate), as I've never really seen a large gap in the mating area of the top and bottom case, unless there is some other magic going on these tolerances must be insane in order to avoid a rattling sound.
I'll see if I can take some pictures when I have the board opened, I'd like to do some measurements. It does indeed seem like the board is very dependent on tight tolerances given the close switch placement and sandwich design. I think the gasket is the primary deterrence of rattling, however, as I mentioned above without it I've heard there's a bit of an unpleasant rattle.
Fantastic writeup dude. I love reading up on korean customs
Do you think with all the different features, such as the PCB cutouts and flexible plate, the typing experience feels better or is it just a bunch of hokey?
At the risk of sounding hokey myself I really do think it does, though I'm not sure I could say which aspects of the design are excessive and which parts contribute the most. When I first received the keyboard and disassembled/reassembled it I thought it was a bit harsh to type on, the plate felt very rigid. However, I removed the dampening foam that seemed to impede a bit of the flexibility of the plate and took extra care in seating the case and tightening screws evenly and there is 100% more flexibility in the plate, which is visually apparent when pressed firmly. After that I think it does feel quite a bit nicer. gundam has
hinted at this as well in his post detailing the Mini. I haven't typed on any other OTDs but I can say it is incredibly satisfying to type on, and the sound of thick ABS paired buttery vintage Blacks in such a dense, heavy case is pretty awesome.
I've also heard that using the keyboard without the weight is supposed to make it feel different. It seems to be a pretty minor change bordering on placebo, but there might be some truth to extra resonance with an empty cavity and less weight/dampening from less mass. The brass weight weighs about the same as the assembled keyboard without it, just judging by hand.