geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: jackrabbit on Wed, 25 November 2020, 17:01:11
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I just got some silent alpacas, and while they are amazingly smooth, I am having a hell of a time getting rid of unwanted noises. I am experimenting on some extras, and I tried putting THICC films in them and lubing them with 205g0, and while they are smoother and a little quieter, there is still a significant amount of extra noise compared to my other switches (gat black inks, silent black inks, cherry silent reds, zeal sample pack).
I'm going to try lubing more places in the switch to see if that helps next. So far, I've wiped the factory lube off the stems with a microfiber cloth, and brushed the 205g0 on the stem rails, stem legs, the rail housing, and the spring (both ends and swirled the brush around the inside). This lubing job has made all my other switches completely devoid of spring noise or other chatter.
Any suggestions or personal experience with silent alpacas? I might try lubing the face of the metal leaf inside the housing where it rubs on the legs next. I guess after that I will keep trying putting 205g0 in more crevices until I discover what's making the noise or I ruin the switch, lol!
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I’d be interested in a sound test. A comparison to your other boards may help. Did you lube the springs?
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Yes, I'd be interested as well, as I'm experimenting with Silent Alpacas.
Are these stock springs we're talking about? The springs def. need to be lubed.
Also, could there be incompatibilities with the thick films?
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I'm finally getting around to experimenting with them, taking lots of pictures and videos. Will upload those later, after finishing.
I compared the internals to a nice, quiet gateron silent ink, and i tried lubing some particularly noisy silent alpacas in a bunch of different places to see what worked.
TL;DR - The alpacas improved slightly with extra lube, but not by much. I suspect a fair amount of the noise is coming from the loose stem top (the part that pressure fits into keycaps). without keycaps, they are very quiet, then noisier with them on. I also tried a set of keycaps that fit tighter, and it cut down some of the noise. There was still some spring or metallic clicking/crunching going on, but I think there's only so much I can do short of spring swapping these. I am happy enough with how they are, and want to go ahead and build a quefrency with them. They will be very nice once soldered/dampened in that way, and will be great for gaming.
I'll post a full write up after I finish here...
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Lube can only do so much.
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Ok, this is the full story: I am getting these switches ready for a quefrency rev2 build, so I put together the left side plate kit to use as a test bed for the switches. It vibrates pretty easily without a PCB to anchor and dampen all the switches, but I put rubber feet on the bottom, and kept it on a deskmat. While checking for noise, I gripped it with my left hand while pressing keys, and that made a big difference and isolated the noises. Unfortunately, I had to hold my camera for the videos, so in those it is un-dampened. In a finished board, these switches are all much quieter. However, comparison is what I'm going for here, so it's fine.
Silent alpacas are wonderfully smooth--I don't want this to paint a picture that they are somehow sub-par. I have just been spoiled by how quiet my recent batch of gateron black inks are, and so hearing any extra spring or metallic noise coming from the alpacas was something I wanted to get rid of if I could. I had 3 alpacas already lubed and filmed with 205g0, so I started by comparing their noise to a stock gat black ink:
Ignoring the loud clack of the black ink, the press-down and let-up is basically silent. By comparison, the silent alpacas have a fair amount of spring (or leaf?) noise. I took one of the silent alpacas apart and compared its internals to a gateron silent black ink, which also has a quieter press. Here's how the stems look side by side:
(https://i.imgur.com/QYSA5hy.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MwFkrle.jpg)
They are almost identical, and the housings are even more exactly the same from what I can see. Interestingly, the silent alpacas look like their dampening pad is sort of a gasket running all the way around the rail, whereas the silent black ink just has pads sticking out of the top and bottom of the rail. They both have about the same hardness on botttom-out. The only difference I feel is in spring or leaf noise, and since I can see no difference in the spring, pole, housing or leaf between the two, it must just be due to fitment tolerances or materials.
Next, I lubed the crap out of the silent alpaca with 205g0. To be clear, I didn't put thick layers on, I kept it light everywhere; but I put it in many places. I re-lubed the spring, outside and inside, and the bottom housing pole the spring sits on. I also lubed the leaf, in the places indicated in blue. Those were the 3 places I figured would make contact with the stem legs or spring:
(https://i.imgur.com/uYrIuF7.jpg)
The stem faces, rails, and housing rail sliders were all lubed as well. After putting it back together, it was barely, bAArely quieter than the other two switches (which I had lubed normally; stems, rails and springs). Here they are, with the extra lubed switch on the left:
The difference is basically inaudible, but I could feel a little less crunch with my finger on the extra-lubed one. I took one of the other switches apart and started lubing one part at a time and putting it back together to see what made the difference, and what I found is that lubing the springs helped some, but not completely, and lubing the leaf plates helped a little more, but not completely.
In the end, all three switches that had been lubed in various ways with 205g0 sounded virtually identical to each other, but they were noticeably quieter and smoother than a stock alpaca with its factory lube. Here is a quick sound test of those, with the stock switch on the right:
Honestly, I was able to tell a minuscule difference when I lubed the leaf face, but I think the only way to make these truly noiseless would be to try swapping for some different springs. I'm not going to go that far with this build, and I still think these will be amazing when I finish soldering them to a PCB and just start using them. If you made it this far in my rambling, thank you for reading, and I hope you learned something useful or interesting from my testing. No major revelations or solutions, but sometimes a null result is what you have to accept from experimentation!