Help/opinions building my mechanical keyboard

[palta]

Hey this is my first time on this website so I hope I'm doing this right. Anyways I'm trying to make a small startup here in college where I build custom keyboards and I was thinking on building a whisper quiet keyboard. I have built a keeb in the past and I'm pretty confident with my technique and knowledge, I still came here to clear doubts and have more knowledgable people give me their opinions because I've never built one that's silent.

I have done my research and selected the switches but am still deciding on the rest, if someone suggests otherwise than what I will mention below please let me know.

Switches: Haimu Heartbeat Silent linear switch

Keycaps:CYL Honor - NovelKeys LLC GMK ABS double-shot, PBTfans Simple Katakana, PBTfans BOW Keycap Set Doubleshot PBT Divinikey, CYL Truffelschwein - NovelKeys LLC.

Cases: Drop ALT High-Profile White Ceramic-Coated Case, Tofu65 2.0 case.

That is all I have been able to come up with because now I'm at a roadblock with the keycaps, I don't know if the ones I chose are good for silence, also cannot figure out if those two cases are good for silence + high quality feel and what to put into them so that there's noise absorption.

Sorry for the long rant but I'd really appreciate the help.

[bigmaxnonions]

Hello and welcome!

So, first things first, the keycaps and switches are pretty universal for most boards. As for the keycaps themselves, they don't tend to affect the sound of silent switches too much, so any set you choose will work fine with the silent switches you have. Basically, the keycaps will come down to what colors you like best, as the switches will do most of the work with sound dampening.

As for boards, if you are looking for something that is truly silent, you'll want to pick out a board that has foam dampening as that will help to mute the sound. A lot of people you talk to in the hobby don't care for the Drop Alt too much, as it has remained relatively simple and unchanged throughout the years, while other boards (like the Tofu65 2.0 for example) have been continuously improved over time. It seems like you are shooting for a 65%, so I'd recommend looking into some of these options: the Savage65 from Cannonkeys, the Bakeneko65 from Cannonkeys, the NK65 from Novelkeys, the Q2 Max from Keychron, the Neo65 from qwertykeys, the QK65 from qwertykeys, just to name a few. Most of these are metal cases, which will be a higher quality feel. All these boards have hotswap options if you aren't looking to solder, and have foam options available. (Granted this is all based in NA, if you live elsewhere the website you buy from may be different)

[palta]

Hey thank you very much for the feedback, I had to take my time to reply and put together the keyboard in a docs. I have one last question though, I want to buy the case bare-bones pretty much and choose the other materials to put into the case. I chose the Neo65 which in my opinion was the best looking by far and especially for the price of it. Now I don't know how to continue all that much in choosing the pcb, sound dampeners, plate, etc. Because I know what a keyboard is made out of and what components it has.

Here is what I chose:

Neo65
Haimu Heartbeat
PBTfans BOW Keycap Set Doubleshot PBT

Now where I'm lost is what pcb option to choose with the Neo65 that's offered and the plate too.

PCB options: Solder non-flex cut pcb, Tri-mode Non-flex cut hotswap pcb, Wired Non-flex cut hotswap pcb.
I'd like a hotswap 100% but I don't know the differences with those two pcb's.

With a plate there's: Plateless, ALU Plate, FR4 Plate, PC Plate, POM Plate, CF Plate.
I feel like choosing plateless because I want to build the keyboard from scratch with my own choices/liking.
Problem with that is that I don't know how to go about that, know what fits in the keyboard, how much I can put in for noise dampening, sizes, etc.

If you have any tips on how to research that, it'd be so awesome and I'd be very grateful!

[Garlic Fanatic]

Neo65
Haimu Heartbeat
PBTfans BOW Keycap Set Doubleshot PBT

Now where I'm lost is what pcb option to choose with the Neo65 that's offered and the plate too.

PCB options: Solder non-flex cut pcb, Tri-mode Non-flex cut hotswap pcb, Wired Non-flex cut hotswap pcb.
I'd like a hotswap 100% but I don't know the differences with those two pcb's.

With a plate there's: Plateless, ALU Plate, FR4 Plate, PC Plate, POM Plate, CF Plate.
I feel like choosing plateless because I want to build the keyboard from scratch with my own choices/liking.
Problem with that is that I don't know how to go about that, know what fits in the keyboard, how much I can put in for noise dampening, sizes, etc.

If you have any tips on how to research that, it'd be so awesome and I'd be very grateful!

For the PCB, it comes down to your need of wirless connectivity or not, if you do need wireless, then go for the tri-mode PCB.

Plateless doesn't work well with hotswap, even Neo themselves recommended against it as the switches may not sit securely in the hotswap PCB. As for the materials, you can check out the product page of the Neo65 where they listed a brief description of each materials (in terms of feel and sound). Check out some youtube videos as well to have a better understanding, but bear in mind that factors such as the recording and your speakers does not translate the sound that you may hear directly onto your keyboard.

The board also comes with a few layers of foams, and it's best that you try it out with different configurations of it to find what you truly like

[Jjmcgee]

I'm new to this as well and I found this article that does a good job explaining the different plate materials:

https://kineticlabs.com/blog/comparing-mechanical-keyboard-plate-materials

Considering the shipping cost from Qwertykeys and how relatively inexpensive the plates themselves are I would recommend adding at least one plate if not two plates. If that that article if accurate I would say order one stiff plate like FR4, ALU or CF and one softer plate like PC or POM unless you already know that do or do not want flex then order either a stiff or a soft plate and use that.

[palta]

Thank you for the tips there, I appreciate it a lot and it's a great help for me to continue planning this. I'll take it all into consideration and continue building it. Ill probably be back here asking questions lol