Filco Brown improvements and mods

[AvengeR]

some time ago I read the keyboards thread at somethingawful, and there was one interesting experience of one user there (GreatGreen).

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3189022&userid=119518
First he bought a logitech g15, which he really disliked so he went to buy a filco tenkeyless with cherry brown switches.
He had problems feeling the bump and also felt the keys to be too light, so he decided to mod it.


http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3189022&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=14#post372479573

Apparently, buying a Filco Tenkeyless keyboard with Cherry MX Brown Switches has made me hopelessly anal about how my keyboards feel and operate now. So, in an effort to attain the perfect keyboard (what a ridiculous pursuit), I've been messing around with it because I wasn't 100% happy about it, which normally wouldn't be a huge issue, but I paid over $100 for the drat thing, so I figure I'd try and get the most I could out of it.

Here are three small things you can do to make your Filco Tenkeyless with Cherry MX Browns a lot better than it was when you first took it out of the box:



1. Reverse the space bar - I'm totally serious. I was amazed at the difference this made. I found that while I liked the feel of the rest of the keyboard, the spacebar was practically cutting into my thumbs with the way it was angled, so I decided to flip it around, and the problem, to my surprise, was basically eliminated completely with no drawbacks. The top of the space bar is now angled exactly flush with the way my thumbs land on it.

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After you take the space bar off, in order to put it back on the keyboard reversed, you'll have to get some needle-nosed pliers and use them to reverse the two small guiding holsters on the underside of the space bar. Don't just twist the guides with the pilers though, or you'll break them. You have to pull them completely out of their holes first. They're not glued in, so don't worry about that. If you're not familiar with what I'm talking about, don't worry, it's pretty obvious once you remove the space bar and see for yourself. After you do this though, the space bar does sit at a slightly different angle than the rest of the keys and does have a kind of "one of these things is not like the other" vibe to it, but it does feel a lot better. Besides, the look probably won't matter to you anyway because no longer having the space bar cut into your thumbs will vastly outweigh any problems you might have with the space bar's now slightly out of place appearance.


2. Dampen the keys themselves with O-Rings. I like Cherry Brown switches, but they are kind of obnoxious to play games with for me because I always tend to heavily bottom out keys when I'm gaming, which doesn't work so well with Cherry Browns because they "clack" rather annoyingly when you bottom them out, and the feel of hard plastic banging against another piece of hard plastic with no padding whatsoever doesn't feel very good either. So, after officially admitting to myself that I have a heavy case of having gone completely off the deep end into nerd-dom, I bought some very small O-rings (5mm diameter by 1.5mm thickness, to be specific) and did this to all the keys:

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After fitting all the keys with these things, bottoming them out is now accompanied by a more satisfying and muffled thud instead of a clack, and the impact is dampened now as well, which is a good thing. Also, it's worth noting that installing the O-rings didn't decrease the key travel by any noticeable degree, so that's really not a concern, in case anybody cares.

Installing the O-rings cost me about $10 at Lowe's and a half an hour or so to do, and I really think it was worth it. The difference isn't exactly night and day like you might expect it to be, but it is different enough (and an improvement enough, in my opinion) to do it. And just as an after thought, the Backspace, Escape key, and space bar on Cherry Brown keyboards are actually improved pretty significantly by these O-rings moreso than the other keys. They now feel the same as everything else, whereas before they were particularly bad in the way they felt and sounded.


3. Put a mouse pad under the keyboard. Simple, really. It just dampens the sound of the keys. It makes more of a difference than you'd think, actually. Try it. If I had to put a reason with it, I'd say that the stock rubber feet on the bottom of the keyboard aren't soft enough to actually dampen any vibrations produced when you hit the keys, so the keyboard actually ends up having a pretty solid connection to the desktop, despite those rubber feet, and it uses the surface of the desk in the same way that guitar strings use the surface of an acoustic guitar to amplify those vibrations. Anyway, a mouse pad definitely helps.


So, after doing all this bull**** to my Filco, I think I finally have the perfect keyboard now. How about that.

opinions?

edit: uploaded images

[Nadger]

I was curious about the mouse pad thing and i smacked my W key pretty hard a buncha times with it on my desk to get used to the noise then picked the keyboard up off the desk and tried again and it did take away some of the deeper thud of it.

O'rings is pretty common trick from what ive read, never heard of the spacebar thing though, guess it depends how your hands lay on the keyboard.

[Ekaros]

Hmm, I have been thinking if you would cut part of key cap away so you would just bottom out the switch not the cap, would this eventualy brake the switch?

[didjamatic]

Too bad the o-rings won't dampen on return as well.

[AvengeR]

These mods can all be found in the mods section of the forum (Xtrac SuperXXL Mousepad FTW!).  I remember that dude posting here.  I think the spacebar mod is super funky but easily reversible.  My son can do this weird thumb trick too so not all thumbs are the same.

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Does that mousepad really improve the feeling of filco keyboards (both blue and brown)?

I'm using a steelseries mousepad (qck heavy) since it does the work, but is not perfect by any means.
Considering that maybe I could buy a xtrac superxxl and use it for the kb and my mouse or just for the kb (cutting it or use another mousepad on top of it), or buy a new mousepad and use my current one at the bottom of the keyboard. On that the second case it would look really awful since my qck heavy is 6mm thick, plus having to cut it just for the sake of it.


more mods:

-Switching leds in a filco.
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:6953

-completely blank filco, or how to remove "caps" and "scroll".
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:6318

-Wooden top
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:6557

[lmnop]

[tamask]

I know it's an old post, but I'm replying, since I did the spacebar mod myself. Actually it's quite easy and straightforward, you just take the spacebar off, you reverse the plastic pieces that hold the metal guide bar, and put the whole thing back bacwards, and you're done. There is one catch though! Beware that the above guide is slightly misleading, when it says "Don't just twist the guides with the pilers though, or you'll break them." In reality you don't twist them at all! The attachment hole is cross-shaped, so all you can and have to do is just pull them out straight. They come off easily, but don't twist them. That's the only trick to it really. Other than that, if you know how to take the spacebar off (which you can look up on youtube), it's easy.

[Hyde]

lol I use a half folded face towel instead of mouse pad.  It's easier to find also dampens the sound more and cheap.

I've recommended people to do it before but I guess since it's a bit ugly so not too many tried it haha.  Though if you do a search on geekhack you might find a few old posts on it