Endurapro -- silenced! (audio clip)

[wellington1869]

I took my endurapro and did a variety of unholy things to it to tamp down the buckling springs racket.  The results were most pleasurable. 'Before' and 'After' audio clips attached.

(Here's a pic of the beast. (I removed the trackpoint too (thanks lal!))).


Basically the sound has been tuned down by -- I'd say -- 50%, while retaining *all* the mechanical feel of the buckling springs. (And you can tune the sound down almost all the way if you wanted to).

As we know by now, there are three main sources of volume on these old mechanical switches. The built in click if any, the "clacks" (bottoming and topping clacks), and resonance of the board itself.

What I did to this poor board:
--Greased the springs. This is basically what the old "soft touch" ibm buckling spring boards had done. (These are sometimes still available for sale at clickykeyboards.com). Since all this is, is the application of grease (silicon grease is what I used), folks have tried this at home, with pretty good results.
So this is exactly what I did. (see pic here).
The results are very effective. You can tune exactly the volume of sound you want by adding or removing grease. The trick (if there is a trick) is to apply the grease to the two inside-sides of the plunger (left side and right side, when key is right side up in front of you). If you saturate it, you can get rid of the click entirely. But that isnt as much fun. The fun is in "tuning" the click by adding just the right amount. For me, half a drop on the left side and half a drop on the right side of the plunger produced the most pleasurable sounds.

So that took care of the "click", but in addition I did a few other things, for good measure, to kill resonance and clack.

clack:
--I thought for a long time about how to kill bottoming/topping clack on the buckling springs. Several things I tried did not work. I thought a washer stuffed around the plunger (and stuffed into the underside of the key) would kill bottoming clack, but it did not. I still dont know where exactly the contact point is located when the key hits 'bottom'. But while I was playing around with it, on a whim I took that rubber washer and placed it around the plunger-recepter "barrel" on the board (rather than on the key). The washer was slightly too small for the barrel, so the washer folded up on itself and wrapped the barrel like a rubber band. This worked amazingly well. It not only kills the bottoming clack, it also cushions the landing. Keystroke depth is barely affected, by a fraction of a millimeter or so, its not noticeable.
(The rubber washers I bought from my local hardware store (.17 cents each))
[update: for pics and deets on these rubber washers, see this thread:
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?t=6032]

To attack resonance:
--I replaced endurapro keys with keys from a "real" 1391401. I find the old model M keys to feel better, a little more grippy and also denser (and thus quieter, less "rattly").
--I put a light coat of grease on the outside of the plunger. I've found this does make a difference for reducing overall resonance and secondary noise from the keys, it also smooths the plunger movement, and it also reduces top clack cuz the indents on the plunger get coated with a light layer of grease.
[update: after a while, I decided "dry" teflon spray worked better on outside of the plunger rather than silicon grease. See this thread:
http://geekhack.org/showthread.php?p=96391#post96391]
--I stuffed some foam I found lying around the house into the space behind the pcb. (I dont think this did much but it didnt hurt).
--I pasted peel-n-stick anti-resonance foam pads that I found on ebay to the underside of the keyboard (they sell these pads to stick to the underside of stereo speakers to kill resonance there). (I dont think this did much either, but it didnt hurt).

The results are excellent - the board sounds extremely civilized, a lovely subdued click of the greased spring, and no loud clack at the bottom. This basically did for buckling springs what the rubber dampers did for the alps on the AEKII. And the mechanical feel of the buckling springs is retained very well.

The comparison sound samples below were both recorded in the same way at fairly close range (couple of inches). I havent normalized volume on either sample so that volume can be compared directly to each other.

You can also listen to individual keypresses from these two boards (similarly non-normalized dual samples) in my noisykeyboard thread, here.

[bhtooefr]

You should've recorded a clip at the same volume level with a non-silenced keyboard for comparison.

[wellington1869]

You should've recorded a clip at the same volume level with a non-silenced keyboard for comparison.

I'll add it. The numpad is still normal so I'll type a bit on that.  [update: added, and both samples now are non-normalized so their difference is volume is actual difference]. (I should add tho, in person, the difference is even greater than it comes across on the recordings, but you can tell something of how they sound from the recordings).

[itlnstln]

Did it change the resistance at all?  Did it make the keys any easier or harder to press?

[wellington1869]

Did it change the resistance at all?  Did it make the keys any easier or harder to press?

The thing with the grease method is, if you saturate it, then it will change feel (as well as noise), but if you dont saturate it, the feel is virtually unchanged.
If you saturate it, the click volume really goes to zero. If you dont saturate it, you can really control the volume level.

I wanted to retain some click volume so I didnt saturate, and so the resistance and feel of the keys is pretty much unchanged on mine. I only tuned down the volume by about 50 percent. I could have done more but I dont need to, my neighbors are happy with this volume (and so am I!).

[itlnstln]

How does the grease work?  Is it thick, and it just cushions the blow of the spring against the key, or does it some how just lubricate the stucture somehow to quiet the click?

[bhtooefr]

Not against the key, but rather against the sidewall of the tube that it's in. (The only contact point the spring has with the key is on top, and it's always in contact there.

[wellington1869]

How does the grease work?

Well, this is a good question. There's a little bit of mystery as to how it basically works. The mystery of the nuances of physics operating at a very subtle level, where tiny changes in materials seems to make for outsized differences in feel and sound.

Is it thick, and it just cushions the blow of the spring against the key, or does it some how just lubricate the stucture somehow to quiet the click?

Well, as far as I can tell, the grease does a few things. I think first off it prevents the spring itself from rattling of course. It gets rid of "spring pings" which is part of the resonating noise on the board. The grease gets in between the coils of the spring. Second, since there is also grease on the sidewall where the spring buckles and hits the sidewall, it definitely also cushions that impact itself very effectively. Lastly I think by coating the plastic like that it tamps down the "smack" from the plastic and limits the board's resonance too.

So if you dont saturate it, it still clicks, but now its a resonance free, ping-reduced, "light" click. (If you saturate it, its amazing that you can really just about silence it altogether, tho that changes feel too, makes it a bit mushier). But you have to really saturate for that.

is it thick?

yes, almost like vaseline. It seems to stay put. I'm using silicon grease in a syringe that I bought off ebay for a few bucks. The syringe makes it infinitely easier to apply to the inside of the plunger.

[wellington1869]

Update on the "silenced" endurapro -- loving it, everytime I put it aside I wind up picking it up again. The tone and volume and feel is a really nice medium level now. (I'd really describe it as a "civilized" buckling spring, .
For now every couple of days I keep swapping this with the "silenced" black alps, love them both and the changeup is nice.
Still looking to buy a matias tp2 though, but other than that I think I've found at least 2 of my "regular" boards...

[lal]

Good to hear you're happy, nice mod! I like mine loud though.

[wellington1869]

another update, I coated the entire top of the board (ie, mounting plate, on which the keys sit) with this stuff, called plasti-dip (comes in variety of colors including 'clear'). It noticeably has dampened resonance even further.  Great stuff.
I'm still planning on filling the space behind the mounting plate with expanding home insulating foam that comes in a spray can.
Btw, re: plasti-dip, it also comes in a spray can. Also this stuff, liquid electrical tape, is also quite useful to have around to coat things with.

Also incidentally, I tried putting a rubber sleeve on the buckling springs to see if they could be used instead of grease to dampen the click noise a little bit. I used something I thought was quite creative -- the ink sacs from old fountain pens (they can be found on ebay or in specialty fountain pen stores), quite cheap, extremely thin (which was the nice thing about them; they're thinner than a sheet of paper), very flexible, and the right width (they go over the spring with about a millimeter to spare on each side), and they fit snugly inside the keystem of buckling spring keys.

The result? Not great. The click vanished completely (and tactile feel wasnt great, felt like rubber dome, dont know if the spring was even buckling, didnt feel like it though I think it had enough room to). So the thin sheet was enough to make the sound vanish (I dont want it to vanish either, i just want it dampened).

So basically I'm no longer counting on rubber sleeve as an alternate to grease. So far grease has been the right way to go for dampening the actual click.

[wellington1869]

So basically I'm no longer counting on rubber sleeve as an alternate to grease. So far grease has been the right way to go for dampening the actual click.

ok, I think I just figured something out. When the spring buckles, it doesnt hit the stem. It hits the "barrel". (The back of the barrel, to be exact, I think). There is a smoothed-out area of plastic there which looks like its the designated "strike pad" for the spring when it buckles.

so I've been applying tape and gum to the wrong thing. Grease works cuz it gets on the spring itself. But if I want to dampen the plastic, thats where I need to apply crap (ie, the bottom back of the barrel).

So over next couple of days I"m going to experiment with a few things (piece of tape (regular, electrical, vinyl), clearcoat nailpolish, plasti-dip) stuck to bottom of barrel to see how they each affect sound. Hoping tape will work well enough because it would be the easiest to remove.  If something like electrical tape works, would be better than grease I think. I dont think it would wear out that fast.

Also this opens up possiblity of getting both anti-resonance and anti-click in one shot by removing the mounting plate on a BS board and just dipping the entire board in a pan of thinned-out plasti-sip and letting it dry overnight.

[wellington1869]

hmmm, update. so putting tape on the barrel doesnt work so well either. Mainly because its much harder to get the piece of tape down the (quite deep) barrel. Its not a fast process. Same with trying to put clearcoat on it. Hard to do it without getting some on the spring. I didnt realize how far down those barrels actually go on the traditional model M/unicomp bs switch.  Those springs are actually quite long!

Anyway, so its back to grease as the best bet...

[itlnstln]

I would be scared of the tapes adhesive weakening overtime and the tape bunching up in the barrel and binding the key up.  It would seem like it would be a mess to clean up.

[wellington1869]

I would be scared of the tapes adhesive weakening overtime and the tape bunching up in the barrel and binding the key up.  It would seem like it would be a mess to clean up.

agreed. I'm trying to stick to mods that are more or less reversible. Plasti-dip can be peeled off, clearcoat comes off with nail polish remover, grease can be wiped off. But once you get that deep in the barrel its really hard to get things out. Guess i'll stick with grease. Seems to work well enough.

I just wish someone would manufacture the mounting plate out of a more rubberized material (instead of plain brittle plastic or steel). That would go a long way towards addressing resonance and excessive loudness. Another great idea for unicomp (if they're listening). Innovate, godnabit!

[itlnstln]

I feel you.  My Northgate suffers from highqualitysteelresonanceitis.

[lowpoly]

I'm trying to stick to mods that are more or less reversible.

But the fun starts when the Dremel comes out.

clearcoat comes off with nail polish remover

Nail polish remover may destroy plastic?

[wellington1869]

But the fun starts when the Dremel comes out.

lol, I've managed to avoid the dremel and soldering iron so far (they're sitting in my toolbag though, waiting for a house with a basement when I can go nuts with them )

Nail polish remover may destroy plastic?

It might. I use the non-acetone stuff which is much milder. For the most part its been fine, occasionally it can leave a mark, depending on the type of plastic.

[itlnstln]

Nail polish remover may destroy plastic?

It shouldn't as long as you use non-acetone remover.  Even regular remover shouldn't damage plastic of this quality, but it's better to be safe than sorry.  Hell, we could the acetone-melted plastic if Wellington's 'board and slap lam's dye-melted keycaps on it and have a very special 'board, indeed.

[bhtooefr]

Hard rubber, maybe?

[wellington1869]

another update: It appears that grease on the endurapro springs needs periodic re-application. This may be a function of the fact that I didnt 'saturate' them with grease. I put it on pretty lightly, so maybe thats why they need reapplication. But bottom line is last night I got a complaint from my roommate, and I had begun to notice myself that the keys were louder than before.

basically the light grease lasted about 3 months, lol, before needing reapplication. Maybe I'll put a little bit more on it this time.

[ocdonkb]

I just applied this mod to my Spacesaver, wow, what a change. The sound is now much more "civilized", the pinging of the spring is reduced, and replaced with a very damped, but reassuring "thud".

Also got my Model M here, which sounded/felt very similar to the Spacesaver before this mod... but now, typing on the Model M is like a walk in the junkyard, the spring sound is very jarring to the ear. The mod'd Spacesaver, on the other hand, is like a stroll through a French restaurant

[ocdonkb]

The nut/bolt mod also reduces spring ping.  Has the disadvantage of more work upfront but you don't have to reapply grease every so often and results IMHO a better key feel.

What is the nut/bolt mod? Is this where you replace the rivets with nut/bolt?

[DreymaR]

Let me get this straight: What kind of grease is good for this? Heavy engine grease? Silicone? What?

Would be fun to do that to my Unicomp but I'm afraid of messing up.

[edit: Okay, fine read the thread better. So you use silicone grease. That makes sense when working with plastic/metal junctures I guess. Other kinds of grease may be stinky and acidic too which isn't nice. So I'll want a tube of the silicone stuff then.]

[wellington1869]

2 pics -- first one shows position and amount of silicon grease; second one shows orientation of the key.  These pics show position and size of the blobs of silicon grease that worked well for me in terms of reducing the sound (without affecting key feel); experiment and see what works well for you.

2 blobs total; this pic shows only one:

[salcan]

2 pics -- first one shows position and amount of silicon grease; second one shows orientation of the key.  These pics show position and size of the blobs of silicon grease that worked well for me in terms of reducing the sound (without affecting key feel); experiment and see what works well for you.

2 blobs total; this pic shows only one:

Show Image

Show Image

Any updates on this?

Keyboard still going strong? Is that grease leaking out and getting in your board? Or sliding down and gumming up the mechanism at the bottom of the spring?

Thanks

[wellington1869]

Any updates on this?

Keyboard still going strong? Is that grease leaking out and getting in your board? Or sliding down and gumming up the mechanism at the bottom of the spring?

Thanks

It seemed to me that the grease needs to be 'replenished' a bit every 4 to 6 months, otherwise the volume level gradually rises just a bit.

That said, if you dont replenish it tho, the volume level still does remain fairly below that of a normal untreated board.  I wound up not replenishing it and thought it was fine.

IBM at one point sold "quiet" keyboards where they did this exact same mod on them. I imagine they didnt intend for the user to replenish the grease at all.  That said, I dont know what type of grease they used, if it was something more viscous or etc.  Silicon grease seems to have about the right consistency though.  I dont think its 'running' down into the circuit board, tho to be fair I didnt look closely at the circuit board. Its a valid question. My sense was that the grease was simply being pushed into the corners of the key stem, but who knows. After 2 years of use tho it was still going strong.

[itlnstln]

I bet that's why the "Quiet Touch" or the "Soft Touch" (I can never keep them straight) keyboards are fairly rare.  There were probably a lot of defective units with the grease getting in the membranes.  I wonder if something fairly thick like bearing grease would do better since it would be less likely to leak into the membrane.

[wellington1869]

silicon grease on membranes shouldnt do any damage, isnt that the whole point of using silicon grease? The other option is lithium grease, also non-harmful to rubber.  I'd be more worried about it getting on circuits and causing shorts or something. But then I guess there's a membrane layer between the stem and the circuits.

Well, 2 years later its chugging along, so if there is a deleterious effect, my guess is its a slow one.  We dont know for a fact that the soft touch boards went bad; its just as likely they were replaced by rubber dome boards when that technology took off.

clickykeyboards.com occasionally still sells a soft touch board, so there are still working specimens out there apparently.

[Rajagra]

Sounds like* a good way to make a BS board office friendly. (*No pun intended.)

How did I miss this thread? Explains a few things. So when the spring buckles it normally glides over the smooth plastic insides of the key stem, but when you add grease there, the viscosity dampens the movement.

And the sound reduction is best when new, but disappears over time. Clever. What they really did was trick people into thinking these keyboards were quiet, then over a period of time get them acclimatised to the sound without knowing it. Sneaky IBM.

[wellington1869]

Sounds like* a good way to make a BS board office friendly. (*No pun intended.)

i originally did it due to roommates complaining about my keyboard noise. They didnt complain with this mod, so yea it does help i guess.

Apparently in general I like dampened mechanicals I guess (my other favorite mechanical switch is fukka alps with dampened sliders).

And the sound reduction is best when new, but disappears over time. Clever. What they really did was trick people into thinking these keyboards were quiet, then over a period of time get them acclimatised to the sound without knowing it. Sneaky IBM.

well it still stays quieter than it was, and I dont know what kind of grease ibm used, maybe it was better in that regard.  But yea, I got acclimated to it (and probably my roommates did too, lol). Its a nice mod. The trick is using the right amount of grease. Too much and you can affect the tactility, too little and it doesnt change anything. But if its just right and you get the best of both worlds. You can "tune" the effect by adding or removing grease. It took me some experimentation to figure out the right size of the 'blob' for my purposes.

[mcdonc]

I just did the soft touch mod to a halfway decent Lexmark 82Gblahblah (because the clicking is driving my girlfriend insane).

I had to do a bit of searching around for the silicone grease.  I wound up getting it from Lowe's hardware (big US chain) in the plumbing department ("Gunk" brand plumber's silicone grease: "Lubricates faucet stems, valves, o-rings, gaskets, etc.  Contains no petroleum additives").  It came in a half ounce jar that was something like $4.00 or so.  You can also get stuff like it (e.g. "Fantasea for O-Rings") on Amazon but most folks want $5-$8 bucks for shipping.  I couldn't really find a suitable syringe anywhere, so I just used a small screwdriver to apply the grease.  (Side note: applying the right amount of grease without any syringe is not much fun).

I'm not that in love with the result.  I think I went a little too heavy on the grease because it badly impacted tactility.  It was a bit of a disaster really.  I managed to recover mostly; every key more or less still "clicks", but it still feels really mushy.  If I had it to do all over again, I'd put less grease on, even though it would be louder.  You need to be really careful with the grease; err on the side of less, because it's awful hard to remove once it's on the spring.

It sounds fine; about twice as loud as a yum cha rubber dome keyboard, but about half as loud as it was before I put the grease on.  I haven't got girlfriend approval or disapproval yet.  She'll probably still hate it.  I hope so, then I can switch back to a non-soft-touch Model M. ;-)

[wellington1869]

thanks for sharing your experience... too much grease will definitely make it mushy, but you can wipe the grease off and it should return to a much more normal feel and sound. Use a q-tip on the barrel under the keys, and a toothpick inside the spring, and you'll get most of the grease off. So long as most of the grease is off it'll still be a fun board. You dont have to put it in the dishwasher or anything to salvage it.

A syringe is key, i think, cuz control of the amount is key.

[mcdonc]

Yeah, as I type on it and take note of weird key feel and take the time out to pry off the offending key and degunk it, it's getting a little better.

PS:  It just occurred to me that I didn't have to look nearly as hard for that silicone grease.  I'm sure the grease that comes on condoms would have worked fine. That's also silicone, and won't hurt.. ahem.. rubber. Not sure how I would have explained it if she found ten condom wrappers in the trash, though.  "Just greasing my keyboard...?" ;-)

[mcdonc]

The girlfriend likes the grease mod.  Damn. ;-)

I added a note about this mod, the dental floss mod, and the nutsnbolts mod to the IBM wiki.

[wellington1869]

Yeah, as I type on it and take note of weird key feel and take the time out to pry off the offending key and degunk it, it's getting a little better.

ya, i've done this myself (over applying). Its totally fixable, might just take a couple of degunking passes. Degunk the keys, try it out for a day, re-degunk if necessary. It improves a bit each time. If you do about three degunk passes it really almost sounds like a normal M again. Just wipe the grease off the inside of the barrel using whatever tools are at hand. (A box of Q-tips work great).

The reason it might take a few degunk passes, is because the grease on the spring is harder to take off, but if you reassemble and use the board for a day, the grease on the spring "transfers" to the inside of the stem barrel as you use the keyboard. Then its easier to get it off from there using just a q-tip inserted into the stem and wiping.

After a couple of degunk cycles like that, you'll find nearly all the grease has thus come off the spring too (transferred to stem, and from there to your qtip easily).  

Thats actually easier than trying to clean the spring which is very difficult and risks bending the spring by accident. Also another advantage of 'degunk cycles' like this is that with each pass you have a chance, while using the board in between passes, to decide when to stop degunking (ie, to decide at what point you do like the sound level).

PS:  It just occurred to me that I didn't have to look nearly as hard for that silicone grease.  I'm sure the grease that comes on condoms would have worked fine.

just make sure its from before you use it... :/

"hold on a minute honey, i'll be right back"

That's also silicone, and won't hurt.. ahem.. rubber. Not sure how I would have explained it if she found ten condom wrappers in the trash, though.  "Just greasing my keyboard...?" ;-)

no worries, i had sex with my topre.

[mcdonc]

I bricked it while trying to also fix its rivets.  I think this was an accident.  I think.  But maybe it will not have died in vain, I'll try to think up something to do with it.