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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: macguy80 on Thu, 17 July 2014, 22:16:16

Title: Buckling Spring without the PING?
Post by: macguy80 on Thu, 17 July 2014, 22:16:16

I love buckling spring keyboards for nostalgia, but one thing that always annoyed me, even back in the day, was the PING from the spring on the upstroke. Is this endemic to buckling springs, or have modern boards reduced this? I understand the overall build quality of the Unicomps don't compare to the old IBM boards, but IBM never made USB keyboards, so I care mostly about the switches themselves. Can anyone advise me?

Thanks!

Title: Re: Buckling Spring without the PING?
Post by: jacobolus on Thu, 17 July 2014, 22:29:27

Have you tried floss-modding them? It cuts down quite a bit of the “ping” (especially on a Model F).

Title: Re: Buckling Spring without the PING?
Post by: dorkvader on Thu, 17 July 2014, 22:54:06

I haven't tried it, but I'm told grease mod works too.

Lexmark even did that one one of their boards once.

Title: Re: Buckling Spring without the PING?
Post by: Findecanor on Thu, 17 July 2014, 23:38:52

Floss mod is easier to undo. If you do the grease mod wrong it will affect the click, and you would have to open the barrel plate to get the springs out to clean them and then do a bolt mod to get them back in.

The trick with the floss mod is to get the length of the piece of floss just right. I have done it on a IBM Model M2 and it removes the ping completely without affecting the feel. (that I can notice)