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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: greath on Mon, 09 February 2015, 12:35:42
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A year or two ago I tried some o-rings on one of my MX Brown boards. I HATED them because of the weird squish when bottoming out and I thought I was going to swear off o-rings forever. They where 50A's.
About 4 months ago I switched from browns to reds and determined I liked them better both for typing and gaming (both for this sample have been Filco MJ2's). I really like the smoothness over the slightly more grainy feeling of the browns. However, I disliked the vagueness and uncertainty of figuring out where the switch activates, and bottoming out is slightly too much travel distance for my fingers without getting fatigued. Also the keys felt slightly unstable when trying to activate the switch without bottoming out by depressing more slowly.
I determined I wanted to try something that would reduce the maxim travel distance without cushioning the bottom out too much. So I picked up 2 packs of 70A o-rings from amazon: one set of 1/16" and one set of 3/32". They where $2 each.
I LOVE THEM! Not only do I get a shorter but only *slightly* cushioned bottom out, they keys feel more solid and stable. I have thick Vortex PBT at the moment and the o-rings make the PBT feel like it has twice the heft from before. I am seriously amazed at how much of an improvement they made for me. They somehow even made the keys feel less "wobbly" (Is this just my imagination? No idea how an o-ring would make the key depression more stable!)
I currently use the 1/16" 70A o-rings. I originally installed the 3/32" but there was a bit too much travel reduction for my taste. It seems like most people who are using o-rings are using the soft 40A-R or 40A-L from WASD and I wanted to see if anyone else was seeing the improvement from harder 70A's like I do.
For those interested in trying them out:
Code 008 for 1/16" 70A's (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FMWLR8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s02?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
Code 106 for 3/32" 70A's (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FMYR48/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1)
At $2 I've been amazed at the upgrade.