Do Leopolds suffer from the dreaded "Filco Ping"?

[Astounding]

I know that the Filco ping is a huge issue, and I'd like to avoid it.  Do Leopolds have this problem?

[alaricljs]

You know that for a fact, huh?

[MissileMike]

I would call that issue "incredibly minor"

[Astounding]

I would call that issue "incredibly minor"

http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?18739-Have-you-experienced-the-Filco-quot-ping-quot-noise&highlight=filco+pinging

[mmmty]

I first noticed the pinging on my Ducky G2 tiger. My Filco 104 red also pings. Both not an issue for me.

[IvanIvanovich]

No pings or pongs noticed on my Leopold FC200RT with browns. But I never type on it like I'm holding an 80's ghettoblaster either.

[alaricljs]

That poll is not about what you think it is about.

[Astounding]

No pings or pongs noticed on my Leopold FC200RT with browns. But I never type on it like I'm holding an 80's ghettoblaster either.

Thank you.  Anyone with blues care to weigh in?

[keyboardlover]

I would call that issue "incredibly minor"

 
How do you know? Have you experienced it?

[keyboardlover]

There sure are a lot of votes for you in the troll poll.

[Astounding]

Dude he is not a girly man like you.

He collects Model M Minis.

Buckling Spring advocates LAUGH at the 10 people in that poll that whine about Cherry MX Ping.

I can only guess what the ALPS guys are thinking.

Wow you posted something useful.  The ALPS ping also, thank you.  I had been seriously considering them.  In fact I sent you a PM about it, and you ignored it, ripster style.

[keyboardlover]

Ripster doesn't PM people back.

He thinks he's better than everybody else. It's called elitism.

This guy Webwit suffers from the same disorder.

[looserboy]

all mechanical keyboards make this sound far or less. depending on your desk too^^, how you re pressing the buttons and far more possibilities.

[Astounding]

all mechanical keyboards make this sound far or less. depending on your desk too^^, how you re pressing the buttons and far more possibilities.

Is it because of the metal back plate?

[Wallach]

This video should answer the OPs question fairly directly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dqJrjshcyg&feature=player_embedded

[keyboardlover]

Pitch seems to vary widely in these videos and sound samples.

[video=youtube;cDFrQA10OiM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFrQA10OiM[/video]

[reaper]

I have a bunch of Filcos and I think only one of them (and only on one key) produces that ping sound.  I have one Leopold (from pre-order and I'm using it right now) and it doesn't ping but I can hear squeaky noise coming out of right enter key and left shift key.  It isn't that bad and when I removed those 2 keycaps and put them back, the noise went away.

[theferenc]

Is it because of the metal back plate?

No, because they have springs in them. Springs vibrate.

[elitekeyboards]

Pings and squeaks? You guys are bored-er than me on a Saturday afternoon;)

Forewarning: I'm biased, yada yada...

- Numero Uno complaint relating to sounds emanating from FILCOs related to squeaky keys, mostly spacebars and backspaces. The frequency of complaints for the same problem in Leopolds is less or equal to that of FILCOs. Sorry, iMav blew away the EK forum when I decided not to maintain it, so a lot of search-able history relating to discussions of this have been lost.

Note that FILCOs now have greased spacebars. I guess it never occurred to the factory or the designer of FILCOs that moving parts often need greasing. It dumbfounded me to no end, but I complained for months and months, and even spec'd out grease (after they f'd it up HARD) and took photos to show the factory what needed to be done. It finally was added to production (spacebars only I'm afraid) in the Spring of 2010...and then the Rosewill copies came out...with greased SBs...and my irritation with Diatec was amplified (another story). BTW, I'm working to have Leopolds greased in the near future (I don't believe it is part of Cherry's spec) but in the meantime I recommend a silicon-based food-equipment/hobby grease if you can find it; customers can contact us for some if they aren't able to find any.

- Second complaint about board sounds related to the pings and resonance from FILCOs; 90% of the time with MX Browns. I even experienced it on my own FKB104M/EB and found in other boards that it occurred randomly and with varying degrees of volume. It is an issue that is partially inherent to mechanical switches, but is also dependent on a handful of variables, some time-varying. On a several occasions we replaced MX Brown switches that exhibited very loud resonance, sometimes to suit a picky customer, sometimes to suit my OCD, but as the problem has some time-varying properties, I gave up on this after a while.

So far, I haven't had a single complaint related to pings or resonance with Leopolds, this should be some testament to a good design, but when I do tests here in my office, I do find that, true to nature, Leopolds do have some resonance, BUT the amplitude of this resonance is quieter, and over a larger sample, Leopolds have a noticeably lower standard deviation in resonance volume than that of FILCOs. This fact should be a testament, either to the consistency present in the Leopold factory, or a design that is less sensitive to inconsistencies in environment/production. Note, however, that I've only tested tenkeyless boards out of the TW factory. I have not had an opportunity to test large numbers of the full-size Leopolds that are made in the Chinese factory.

O.K...going outside into the sun now. Have a good weekend everyone:)

[keyboardlover]

Good info to know. Thanks, EK.

[elitekeyboards]

I think that nobody complains about the Leopolds because at $99 that was a f***ing good deal.

geekgirl didn't get that tan by cursing on the interwebz all weekend.

[keyboardlover]

Ripster, why don't you go play catch with your kid sometime or something?

[redpill]

No, because they have springs in them. Springs vibrate.

Why doesn't my KBC Poker w/Browns ring like a bell as my pre-foam Filco did?

[keyboardlover]

I updated the OP of the "ping poll" with the helpful info from EK.

[SecrtAgentMan]

Why doesn't my KBC Poker w/Browns ring like a bell as my pre-foam Filco did?

Metal plate so nothing for the noise to resonate as loudly through, that's just what I'm thinking.

[redpill]

Metal plate so nothing for the noise to resonate as loudly through, that's just what I'm thinking.

Careful using the word resonate, there are some physics geeks around here that will get into an argument of semantics over it.  But you are correct and I don't know why so many people try to deny that there's obviously something wrong with the way the plate is attached on some Filcos that cause it to make an unusual amount of sustained noise during normal use.

[The Solutor]

Metal plate so nothing for the noise to resonate as loudly through, that's just what I'm thinking.

 
I think this is just part of the explanation.

PCB mounted switches are harder to solder incorrectly, because the nubs and because the lack of plate.

Missing plate means also lack of resonance chamber.

Missing plate means also that the sound is harder to be transmitted to the neighbor switches and the inner springs.

On cherry boards the additional jumper or diode make the switch better coupled with the pcb.

All those difference will contribute to the final effect.

[SecrtAgentMan]

I think this is just part of the explanation.

PCB mounted switches are harder to solder incorrectly, because the nubs and because the lack of plate.

Missing plate means also lack of resonance chamber.

Missing plate means also that the sound is harder to be transmitted to the neighbor switches and the inner springs.

On cherry boards the additional jumper or diode make the switch better coupled with the pcb.

All those difference will contribute to the final effect.

But all metal plates for Filcos would be attached the same way (hopefully).

So if that's true then it has to be something with the switch, and more than likely the spring.

I know my Filco has pinging on a few keys so when I thought about it I had to come to the conclusion that there is something wrong with the spring/switch, and of course the metal plate makes the noise sound louder than it should be.

If something was wrong with the plate than I'm lost as to why not every key does this.

[SecrtAgentMan]

If part of the metal plate had rubber or some type of dampening material maybe that would help with the noise transferring.

As in between the F keys and the numbered keys.

Good luck with the testing though ripster.

[SecrtAgentMan]

Preferred hang out place

[The Solutor]

Filcos are attached like any other plate mounted switch.  The Cherry MX modules act as spacers.

I posted this pic before but the Class Was NOT Paying Attention!

Show Image

.

As usual you're wrong.



This is the BW plate (not ringing at all), not only the plate is bent in every direction, is also soldered to the pcb in many places, and there are a lot of plastic spacers in the middle.

Result: not resonating plate.

[Astounding]

Maybe it was because everybody was busy complaining about the generic look of the Leopold and no logo?

PING!

 
Why do you keep saying ping?

[Astounding]

Pings and squeaks? You guys are bored-er than me on a Saturday afternoon;)

Forewarning: I'm biased, yada yada...

- Numero Uno complaint relating to sounds emanating from FILCOs related to squeaky keys, mostly spacebars and backspaces. The frequency of complaints for the same problem in Leopolds is less or equal to that of FILCOs. Sorry, iMav blew away the EK forum when I decided not to maintain it, so a lot of search-able history relating to discussions of this have been lost.

Note that FILCOs now have greased spacebars. I guess it never occurred to the factory or the designer of FILCOs that moving parts often need greasing. It dumbfounded me to no end, but I complained for months and months, and even spec'd out grease (after they f'd it up HARD) and took photos to show the factory what needed to be done. It finally was added to production (spacebars only I'm afraid) in the Spring of 2010...and then the Rosewill copies came out...with greased SBs...and my irritation with Diatec was amplified (another story). BTW, I'm working to have Leopolds greased in the near future (I don't believe it is part of Cherry's spec) but in the meantime I recommend a silicon-based food-equipment/hobby grease if you can find it; customers can contact us for some if they aren't able to find any.

- Second complaint about board sounds related to the pings and resonance from FILCOs; 90% of the time with MX Browns. I even experienced it on my own FKB104M/EB and found in other boards that it occurred randomly and with varying degrees of volume. It is an issue that is partially inherent to mechanical switches, but is also dependent on a handful of variables, some time-varying. On a several occasions we replaced MX Brown switches that exhibited very loud resonance, sometimes to suit a picky customer, sometimes to suit my OCD, but as the problem has some time-varying properties, I gave up on this after a while.

So far, I haven't had a single complaint related to pings or resonance with Leopolds, this should be some testament to a good design, but when I do tests here in my office, I do find that, true to nature, Leopolds do have some resonance, BUT the amplitude of this resonance is quieter, and over a larger sample, Leopolds have a noticeably lower standard deviation in resonance volume than that of FILCOs. This fact should be a testament, either to the consistency present in the Leopold factory, or a design that is less sensitive to inconsistencies in environment/production. Note, however, that I've only tested tenkeyless boards out of the TW factory. I have not had an opportunity to test large numbers of the full-size Leopolds that are made in the Chinese factory.

O.K...going outside into the sun now. Have a good weekend everyone:)

 

Some awesome info in here, thanks for the reply.

[redpill]

Why do you keep saying ping?

Because he's a Filco shill and sycophant that wants to blame the Cherry switches instead of admit an obvious design/assembly flaw.  The fact that not all Filco boards make the same loud ring indicate it is a flaw that only happens on some boards.  The cause is not "the springs" because all springs make some noise, yet not all plate mounted keyboards ring.

[redpill]

Sycophant sounds dirty.

Like Elitekeyboards says it's a stochastic phenomenon.

Kind of like the luck of the draw if you get a 3 sigma.

A phenomenon which happens in greater frequency and amplitude on Filco keyboards.  It's a design/assembly issue that causes that, not the ubiquitous cherry switches.

It's a good thing for your cause that no one makes Leopold space bar stabilizer adapters.  Otherwise there would be a pretty short list of reasons left to pay so much more for a Filco.

[keyboardlover]

Redpill's got the real deal in his sig. Realforce 87U.

I thought about selling mine but with all this pinging around I've realized it really is one of the best made keyboards.

[The Solutor]

Because he's a Filco shill and sycophant that wants to blame the Cherry switches instead of admit an obvious design/assembly flaw.  The fact that not all Filco boards make the same loud ring indicate it is a flaw that only happens on some boards.  The cause is not "the springs" because all springs make some noise, yet not all plate mounted keyboards ring.

 
I think we can agree on some basics.

#1¨ Ping and ring are two different problems

#2 Ping usually affects more the brown and clear switches, and this excludes the coiled springs (if were a problem in coled springs the problem was frequent even on red and blacks), likely the additional moving part of the blue switches acts as dampener for the blue switches contact's spring, so also blues are rarely affected.

#3 Ping is usually limited to few switches per keyboard due to Cherry related tolerances.

#4 The board construction and the soldering tightness/loseness may put in evidence or mask the effect above.

#5 Ring affects mainly filcos and likely some other board like the ripster's numpad, and is manly due to the plate/keyboard construction, material used, and so on

#6 Nothing prevents that both the effect are present on some unlucky (filco) boards, and if this happen, the conclusions/reports of the owner can be misleading.

#7 Since I read here some complaints about pinging boards, I haven't noticed the ping on my board. On the original configuration my Xarmor had two pinging switches and after I noticed them the ping become absolutely audible and definite. I think the same happens for most users with pinging/ringing boards, so the pinging/ringing boards can be a lot of more than the complaints are evidencing.


This is what I understood since I read about the problem

I forgot something ?

[The Solutor]

How about that nobody seems to agree on how loud this is?

Weren't you that that accused me to fake my sample, which doesn't sound too much different than your kinesys one ?

[The Solutor]

Correct

[The Solutor]

Well, I don't type that way.

 
Me too, but when i posted the sample the main problem was that someone never heard the ping, so my purpose was to made it audible in the most definite way.

[keyboardlover]

TIL that there's a book about Duckys that ping.

[The Solutor]

What keyboard was that again you recorded?

Was my xarmor. It had two brown switches pinging when it was brown, and just one when I modded it to ergo clears.

You will be happy to know that monday my new Qpad should be in my hands, so even if it's blue and hardly will have any pinging switches I'll test it carefully to see if any of them will exhibit the problem.

[The Solutor]

So if it sounds like mine and the Filco sounds like that why is everyone blaming Filco manufacturing for this?

Because, from what I can understand, while ping affects few switches, the filco's  ring affects all the keyboard.

I can't say a lot more w/o a filco in my hands.

BTW If someone want to send me its ringing fillco I'll be glad to fix it for free (except shipment obviously)

[The Solutor]

BTW due to distance/shipment costs, an European user should be better, or the "for free" part of the sentence will became meaningless.

[SecrtAgentMan]

Ripster your pinging sounds like it has an echo to it, as if you yelled into a cave.

But yeah that's what it sounds like mostly for me, minus the echo bit.

[theferenc]

A sycophant is also known as a "yes man." Historically they were the people around the king that did anything he wanted in the hopes of being rewarded. Also known as a suck up, a brown noser, a boot licker, etc.

So, I just want to say, the only ping I hear in any of the sound samples is clearly due to springs, or typing in a very odd fashion. That's why I claim it isn't because of the plate.

I'm against all keyboards with Cherry switches, personally, so I don't have a particular ax to grind in that argument, but I will say I just don't hear it. The only thing I heard that does ping is that kinesis keypad.

And a Model M. But that's just the nature of the beast. And bolt modding usually fixes it. Dental floss fixes what bolt modding doesn't, if it bothers me, which it almost never does.

[Astounding]

Does seem like a misuse.  If I'm a shill I'm being paid.  If I'm a Filco rep I'm being paid.

Have I ever mentioned I work for Diatec?

 
I didn't know you worked for them! I need this item:

http://www.diatec.co.jp/en/det.php?prod_c=777

Can you tell me when it will be available in the US, and how much the cost will be including shipping?

[alaricljs]

Shoot, I don't work for them and I can answer that question.  Ask your local distributor, our records show that the UK company TheKeyoardCo is who you are looking for.

[woody]

Have I ever mentioned I work for Diatec?

Can I get a discount, pretty please, with a Cherry MX on top?

[Astounding]

Can I get a discount, pretty please, with a Cherry MX on top?

I would also like a discount please.  It's time for some geekhack discount codes.