Silent build help

[Bucksaway03]

Hi All,

Hopefully someone can help me out here as I have started to dive into looking for a "silent" keyboard I can use in an open plan office. My issue though is I'm completely overwhelmed with options.

Was looking into a Keychron K Pro series but anything barebones is completely out of stock (in the Australian store ) and then trying to find anything else leads my down a rabbit hole of confusion,  out of stock notifications and pre orders/group buy kind of things.
Are the V series an acceptable board? The Q is out of budget unfortunately.

Was going to put some BOBA U4 silent tactile in it but that's also out of stock.

Keycaps I'll probably just get something from aliexpress? Eo many options don't even know where to start.

Don't really care if it's pre built or barebones but can anyone make some reccomendations for under $250 AUD? Looking at 96% or 100% as preference but understand they aren't that popular and I'll have more luck with a 75% which I'd also be happy with if the price is right and it's somewhat "silent"

[LavenderB]

I've heard a lot of good things about the keychron v series, and there aren't many other readily available customizable fullsize keyboards out there.

[garynguyen]

I suggest you can try Keychron K4 Pro, replace the Keychron switches with Wuque Studio Silent Tactile/Linear.

Or considering AKKO Haze Pink.

[HungerMechanic]

The K-series, or even the V-series should be fine. To get quiet in an affordable board, you need:

-decent stabilizers that come pre-lubed
-dampening

A lot of the Keychron builds come with these things. Some Keychron keyboards come with PCB-mount stabilizers, hopefully pre-lubed. I can tell you from experience that pre-lubed PCB-mount stabilizers will make a significant difference in an affordable board being quiet.

So, basically Keychron is a good choice. Get something with PCB-mount stabilizers, if possible, and comes with dampening material [foam and stuff]. U4 Boba is also an excellent choice of switches, so wait for them to come in stock. [You don't really need to lube U4 Boba, even though it helps. It's really helpful to at least lube the springs, though, which can be done relatively quickly through bag-lubing.]

If I needed a quiet keyboard, I would buy a Keychron Q6 and stuff it with OUTEMU switches similar to U4 Boba. That alone would be 60-80% of an ideal build. Lubing would bring it the last 20-40%. Of course, a Q-series or even V-series would be fine. Plastic cases are probably easier to silence than metal, and you don't need fancy mounting options with silent switches.