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Author Topic: Silence of the Topre  (Read 28410 times)

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Offline khaangaaroo

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Silence of the Topre
« on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:06:39 »
Silenced version on the left. Regular on the right.


The housings are the same, but the plungers are different. The base of the purple one is slightly thinner to make up for reduction of travel caused by the foam piece.


There is a thin glossy layer on the top side of the foam disc, perhaps to keep it from sticking to the bottom of the housing or to help maintain rigidity.


Compared to o-rings from wasdkeyboards.
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Offline Danule

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #1 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:19:04 »
Any difference in typing feel?
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Offline khaangaaroo

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:25:39 »
Quote from: Danule on Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:19:04
Any difference in typing feel?

There's a difference on 30g when I lift off the keys slowly. The upper landing feels softer.
I can't feel a difference on 45g and up because the keys reset so quickly.
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Offline morpheus

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #3 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:40:53 »
Man...Realforce is beckoning me....but I gotta dance with my FC660 for a while....
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Offline Sniping

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:46:38 »
If you put that foam ring on the regular plunger would it make any difference in sound/feel?
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Offline khaangaaroo

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:53:37 »
Quote from: Sniping on Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:46:38
If you put that foam ring on the regular plunger would it make any difference in sound/feel?

It should make it almost exactly the same as a silenced switch. Only difference is that there's a tiny bit less travel since the regular plunger is thicker. But we're talking like 0.2mm off the upward stroke here. I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference between a silenced purple plunger and silenced black plunger with the same foam piece.
« Last Edit: Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:55:08 by khaangaaroo »
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Offline tp4tissue

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 12:15:40 »
Quote from: khaangaaroo on Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:53:37
Quote from: Sniping on Tue, 25 June 2013, 10:46:38
If you put that foam ring on the regular plunger would it make any difference in sound/feel?

It should make it almost exactly the same as a silenced switch. Only difference is that there's a tiny bit less travel since the regular plunger is thicker. But we're talking like 0.2mm off the upward stroke here. I don't think anyone would be able to tell the difference between a silenced purple plunger and silenced black plunger with the same foam piece.

Hmm...... the note you put in on the shiny-ness on top of the black ring is a good catch...

This means that if anyone is doing the dental band mod, they should coat it with some non alcoholic-drying dry lubricant
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Offline Sniping

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 14:15:13 »
These pictures lead me to believe that dental bands would be too thick for this. The RF rings are so much smaller than o-rings.
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Offline kelske

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #8 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 15:43:43 »
Quote from: Sniping on Tue, 25 June 2013, 14:15:13
These pictures lead me to believe that dental bands would be too thick for this. The RF rings are so much smaller than o-rings.

Nice pics! I would assume the only downfall of the dental bands mod (compared to standard type-S) is that it affects travel distance by an extra 0.5mm or something?
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Offline anticorrelator

  • Posts: 11
Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #9 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 19:06:14 »
Thanks for the pictures. I wonder if it's possible to find these pads anywhere...
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Offline jabar

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #10 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 19:14:04 »
Those rings are worth hundreds!
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Offline 002

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #11 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:07:26 »
Nice pics. I never even noticed the thinner base on the silent plunger. Would you mind if I used your pic for the Deskthority wiki? (btw, sometimes the housing is purple too, but other than that, it looks the same)
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Offline khaangaaroo

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #12 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:24:08 »
Quote from: 002 on Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:07:26
Nice pics. I never even noticed the thinner base on the silent plunger. Would you mind if I used your pic for the Deskthority wiki? (btw, sometimes the housing is purple too, but other than that, it looks the same)

Sure! I don't mind at all. Wiki it up.
I forgot about the housing color. My silenced 87U has purple housings. These black housings are from a 89S.
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Offline The_Beast

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #13 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:28:03 »
Man, I would get a topre silent just for those legit purple plungers!
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Offline 002

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #14 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:29:47 »
Haha oddly enough my 89s has all purple switches :)
Thanks btw - will make sure I reference you on the wiki.
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Offline orlando

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #15 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:37:18 »
Quote from: kelske on Tue, 25 June 2013, 15:43:43
Quote from: Sniping on Tue, 25 June 2013, 14:15:13
These pictures lead me to believe that dental bands would be too thick for this. The RF rings are so much smaller than o-rings.

Nice pics! I would assume the only downfall of the dental bands mod (compared to standard type-S) is that it affects travel distance by an extra 0.5mm or something?
You could always make your own o rings.
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=40582
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Offline ___q

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #16 on: Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:46:00 »
Quote from: orlando on Tue, 25 June 2013, 23:37:18
Quote from: kelske on Tue, 25 June 2013, 15:43:43
Quote from: Sniping on Tue, 25 June 2013, 14:15:13
These pictures lead me to believe that dental bands would be too thick for this. The RF rings are so much smaller than o-rings.

Nice pics! I would assume the only downfall of the dental bands mod (compared to standard type-S) is that it affects travel distance by an extra 0.5mm or something?
You could always make your own o rings.
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=40582

I can confirm that this mod works great (punching your own rings out of thin rubber), but it's not particularly fun to do.  Plus, an 87U has like eighty thousand screws in it, all of which are fairly tight from the factory, so if you aren't careful you could easily strip a lot of them.

It doesn't affect the feel of the keys at all, and it reduces sound about as much as the from-the-factory silenced switches (I typed on a silenced-in-this-fashion and an unsilenced 87U side-by-side, and am typing this on purple-stemmed silenced topres).

Plus, (and I don't think this is an issue for the HHKB or the Leopold), the left control key of the 87U has an LED and is a different plunger design than the rest of the keys, so you can't just add a ring to it (there's sort of a slot that the plunger fits in to in order to fit the led in there).   I use the left control a lot (emacs) and so I got around this by desoldering said LED and swapping the switch housing with the normal one from of the keys I rarely use (I believe pause/break).
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Offline velvetdon25

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #17 on: Thu, 18 July 2013, 23:14:38 »
Does the HHKB Type - S use a different kind of silencers?
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Offline noisyturtle

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #18 on: Thu, 18 July 2013, 23:39:40 »
Add more rubber to a rubber dome board? Bah!
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Offline limmy

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #19 on: Fri, 19 July 2013, 01:55:07 »
Very interesting.

Last time I checked the plungers, dimensions were very similar. I didn't see thinner bottom base as we see in the photos in the OP. The bottom base of silent version was about the same thickness as non-silent version. http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/3912126
28649-0

I thought what I observed was natural because it was in line with what is mentioned in HHKB type-s description that stroke is reduce a bit.
http://www.pfu.fujitsu.com/hhkeyboard/hhkbpro2_types/feature.html (From google translate, I read the stroke is reduced to 3.8mm from 4mm)

I think it is safe to say Topre had changed the mold so that silent version has same stroke length of 4mm. I knew that not every silent version had same plunger, but it was new to me that they had made meaningful modifications. See here for more photos of different plungers from Topre boards. http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/4197736
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Offline walterwhite8

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #20 on: Fri, 19 July 2013, 02:24:59 »
The foam disc with glossy look very special. does it know what material or name is it called?
want to upgrade my topre realforce some days. would be nice as an alternative to the o-rings
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Offline smknjoe

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #21 on: Fri, 19 July 2013, 02:28:29 »
Time to break out the micrometer. The purple base looks like it's the same thickness as the black, but the cylinder on the purple one looks like it's longer (and the legs of the base are shorter) to compensate for added pad.
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Offline danrew

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #22 on: Fri, 19 July 2013, 07:40:52 »
So, basically, the foam cushions the up-stroke on a Topre switch. as opposed to the o-ring that dampens the sound of bottoming out on a Cherry switch?
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Offline AKIMbO

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #23 on: Sat, 20 July 2013, 22:53:37 »
Quote from: danrew on Fri, 19 July 2013, 07:40:52
So, basically, the foam cushions the up-stroke on a Topre switch. as opposed to the o-ring that dampens the sound of bottoming out on a Cherry switch?

Yes....you're100% correct.
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Offline ___q

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Re: Silence of the Topre
« Reply #24 on: Sun, 21 July 2013, 00:09:08 »
Yeah, but bottoming out on a topre switch is already quiet, since you're bottoming out on rubber, not on plastic/metal.
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Offline zoolzoo

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Re: Silence of the Topres
« Reply #25 on: Mon, 22 July 2013, 06:32:46 »
The "thock" bottom out sound is amazing and I would never want to eliminate it. Its not even that loud.

In fact I think it could sing me to sleep, not keep me wired up like my MX Blues. Nice thread though.
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