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geekhack Community => Keyboard Keycaps => Topic started by: RumblyTurnip on Wed, 20 September 2017, 11:23:00
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Hey, I am new to decent keyboards and the variety of things you can do with them, I first got a taste for nice keyboards when I had a Raptor-Gaming K1 back in the day, or at least it seemed decent to me, I loved how it was all about quality and not flashing lights !
Anyway years later I decided I wanted another mech keyboard but I was on a tight budget, so after some research I went with the Qisan Magicforce 68 - Cherry MX Red.
Very happy ! However me being me wants to play further :P I am looking seriously into o-rings to dampen the bottm out noise and impact and also travel distance? And maybe changing the keycaps, although they feel good to me but, what do I know !
So I was wondering if there are any recomendations for tweaks to this board (with regards to gaming and typing experience; aesthetics are of very little interest to me) Are the any sort of keycaps which are known to be a solid choice for a first timer?
Cheers !!
(I am on a budget, so I can't go mad.. just looking at common options)
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MF 68 was my first hobby board, it's a great option imo. O rings did wonders for the switches in my experience. Reduced travel distance just a tad, helped with the tinny bottoming out sounds the caps made, and really made the typing experience a lot better for a very small amount of $$. Most importantly, my wife decided she didn't need to leave me due to the constant clack
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Thank you, I really appreciate the reply, definitely will get o-rings!
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I'm using a Magicforce 68 too (but with backlit & gateron browns).
What i did:
- Replaced the stock keycaps with PBT keycaps. PBT is more durable than ABS and to me the feeling is by far superior. I used Tai-Hao PBT backlit caps but you could use every PBT set you want since the MF68 is completely standard layout.
- Added o-rings to the caps to further reduce the noise (i don't use that board at home). I used rather thin ones because the thick ones decreased the travel distance to much for my liking.
- Stuffed some foam packaging material inside the case. The case is fairly hollow and this increases the noise of keypresses. Filling the empty space reduces the noise a little bit. I assume the effect depends on the used material but i cheaped out extremely and really took foam packaging material for this someone used to send me something i ordered (so it was free). The keyboard noise also depends on your table, for me it is louder at home than at work. So a rubber/dampening mat or something like that under the keyboard could further decrease noise. If you look around on reddit regarding this there are more people that filled their case with some sort of foam material (some did buy better stuff though)
What i want to do now is to lube the stabilizers because they are rattling quite a bit. And maybe i'm swapping the spacebar switch for something heavier, because it should be (especially since my new "artisan" pbt spacebar is much heavier than the stock one which decreases the felt weight).
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Thank you so much for the reply, I appreciate it that's a lot of useful information, specially for me as i am so new to this stuff!
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Also, keeb.io is currently selling replacement PCBs for the Magicforce 68 with tmk/qmk firmware for 12 usd. With this the keyboard would be fully programmable.
https://keeb.io/collections/keyboard-pcbs/products/mf68-magicforce-68-pcb-replacement-kit
Thinking myself about doing this but it is a lot of work because you have to desolder everything and solder it back on the new pcb.
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Well that's just sweet, didn't realize this existed. Guess I've got a new project to look into.
How involved would something like this be? Time isn't a problem, just don't want to jump in and realize I'm missing critical information
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