ping, ping, ping, ping and ping - multiple sources?

[KHAANNN]

I thought I had the occasional pings sorted out, they were faulty switches, I even decided to detect and replace them if needed
The pinging wasn't even an issue in the beginning, I didn't notice it, I was too concentrated on how each green switch clicked

After starting to occasionally hear the pings, I modded the keyboard by adding a sound absorbing sponge layer below the PCB, before the mod, it was more of a random issue for me, heard the ping during heavy typing flurries

Now, at night, in a silent room, all I hear is pings

I can verify that the bottom arrow switch pings when depressed, so switches are definitely source of pings, even at a very light click and depress, it produces a ping sound

But I also noticed, every other switch also produces a ping sound too, most of them when they are pressed/bottomed out pretty hard

Moreover, I can produce this ping sound, just by hitting the keyboard and not the keys

So I'm wondering whether the PCB and the switches are two distinct ping sources, or whether me hitting the keyboard just resonates the pinging switches

In any case, my mod was pretty futile, I should instead work on connecting the plate/pcb to the bottom of the keyboard, with something like tack-its, so it taps into the sound absorbment of the desk
What I did, probably pushed the plate upwards, helped it resonate more / resonate freely

I'm still not sure about any of this tho, I love the green switches, but thinking of going back to my silent reds and getting this over with

[ablooga]

am I the only one thinking in my head "TL;DR"

[KHAANNN]

am I the only one thinking in my head "TL;DR"

is there another person thinking in your head?

[tp4tissue]

Yea.. the ping's there if you look for it..

But if you're concentrated on "what you're doing" it's really not much of an issue.

Unless of course "what you're doing"  is listening for ping..

[ablooga]

am I the only one thinking in my head "TL;DR"

is there another person thinking in your head?

good response.
 TL;DR btw

[KHAANNN]

Yea.. the ping's there if you look for it..

But if you're concentrated on "what you're doing" it's really not much of an issue.

Unless of course "what you're doing"  is listening for ping..

Likely, I just noticed that my AC was off during this ping discovery, macbook's are always extremely silent, therefore it's not suprising that in extreme silence, the pings stand out a lot, I didn't have these kind of issues back when I had a laptop that was constantly swoofing its fans like there's no tomorrow

Out of curiosity, I tested the red switches too, you can only hear their ping if you put your ear near the keyboard, so they ping too, put probably at a 1/5 strength etc. unhearable, the green one on the other hand is very much a ping, I just wasn't noticing it before as it blends into the click/thock sound, and I wasn't paying attention :)

Again, out of curiosity, I tested the most pingy switch with a thick o-ring, as expected, it made no change

Result: red switches for the obsessives (or blues/browns - even blacks, I couldn't get my blue/brown/black unmounted switches to ping, yet the clear also pings noticeably)

[Melvang]

Sounds like this would be due to the spring.  I don't know how effective it would be but you might be able to try the floss mod on those.  Essentially find some Oral B Super Floss.  It is thick and fuzzy.  Cut a piece and insert it into the spring.

If you can't find that you can use the interior cores from paracord. 

[Ludovician]

am I the only one thinking in my head "TL;DR"

It's not a particularly long post.

[KHAANNN]

Sounds like this would be due to the spring.  I don't know how effective it would be but you might be able to try the floss mod on those.  Essentially find some Oral B Super Floss.  It is thick and fuzzy.  Cut a piece and insert it into the spring.

If you can't find that you can use the interior cores from paracord.

Honestly, I'm very tempted even though it would require me to resolder the entire board, thanks for the advice

I guess I will try it extensively on some sample switches first, it seems the floss might cause glitches in the long run (slide out, cause mushiness etc.), with the floss logic however, gluing the spring onto one end also seems logical to me at this point

I also considered a more suitable switch, an alternative keyboard, but I'm too hooked on the greens, can't go back now

[Melvang]

Sounds like this would be due to the spring.  I don't know how effective it would be but you might be able to try the floss mod on those.  Essentially find some Oral B Super Floss.  It is thick and fuzzy.  Cut a piece and insert it into the spring.

If you can't find that you can use the interior cores from paracord.

Honestly, I'm very tempted even though it would require me to resolder the entire board, thanks for the advice

I guess I will try it extensively on some sample switches first, it seems the floss might cause glitches in the long run (slide out, cause mushiness etc.), with the floss logic however, gluing the spring onto one end also seems logical to me at this point

I also considered a more suitable switch, an alternative keyboard, but I'm too hooked on the greens, can't go back now

If you want to see how well the floss mod works on an XT...

This video is before only.  The after clip link is in that description.  Nothing funny, just didn't feel like editing them together.  I took the first clip, did the floss mod, did the second clip in one sitting.

[KHAANNN]

Thanks for the video, it was interesting

I opened up a cherry switch to inspect alternatives, however since the inside of the spring houses the stem insert, such a mod seems impossible

Interestingly, the spring was also hooked (grips the bottom cylinder) to the bottom of the housing on the switch I inspected, so my glue idea would also be futile

I wonder whether some switches ping because their springs don't hold the housing tube, I guess I might open the most pingy switch I could find and see

(Someone on another thread mentioned opening up a switch/re-assembling and eliminating the sound, so this theory makes sense)

(The switch I checked was a green switch I previously destroyed while trying to remove, the cause was that it was too silent / didn't click enough, slightly ironic)

In the meantime, I will try forgetting about it and seeing how it treats me

[Novus]

I believe you may be suffering from space herpes or shatnerism

[KHAANNN]

I believe you may be suffering from space herpes or shatnerism

I hope it's shatnerism in that case, space herpes doesn't sound good, is it a ktd of some kind? I knew I shouldn't lick that switch ...

[KHAANNN]

Cherry MX Quality
I got 20 spare green switches today, tested them all, out of the 20, only 4 were pingless / crisp, just wow. Of the other 16, 3-4 had extreme sound issues, the others were just meh~, the ping didn't resonate too much.

The Solution
My theory was correct, it's indeed the loose spring that causes the ping, at one point I thought it was the switch contacts, yet that's not the case, it's 100% the loose springs, some springs aren't loose, therefore they don't cause the ping sound

The solution is to disassemble the switch, squeeze one end with a plier and insert that end to the switch base, in my last trial, I squeezed the spring too much, mutilating it, then I had to push the spring down with a screwdriver, I couldn't describe how crisp the resulting switch was, just beautiful, pure crispness

Now I have to resolder 87 switchez, but in the end, I will probably have a keyboard worth fables, I'm even thinking of renewing the board, and put it into the replacement enclosure WASD sent me, as I damaged the enclosure slightly at one of my previous trials

I also want to thank WASD for the initial lead, a lot of people bashed the CODE keyboard for the pings, I asked WASD for a solution, Weyman told me the switches were the issue, and they indeed are, Cherry should definitely get those springs under control

For those who want to fix their switches too:



yeah, feels good to find a working solution :)

[Oobly]

Lube the spring,
stop the ping.

Glad you found another solution, but I think lubing is a little easier. Surprised nobody else mentioned it yet.

[Novus]

Lube the spring,
stop the ping.

Glad you found another solution, but I think lubing is a little easier. Surprised nobody else mentioned it yet.

We paean your greatness

[KHAANNN]

Lube the spring,
stop the ping.

Glad you found another solution, but I think lubing is a little easier. Surprised nobody else mentioned it yet.

Unfortunately, In my limited experience, lubing the spring also stops the click (as the lube also jumps to the 2-part stem), it might work for clears tho (also it's logical that it might also increase the ping, as the cause seems the free movement of the spring, in the long run the lube might move down and help the ping, as it will let the spring move freely, it highly depends on the viscosity of the lube tho)

Also lubing is comparatively harder and more delicate, seems more risky too, as the lube will most probably cover the entire housing (from inside) with each click in the long run, but I'm guessing that will have no damage, still ...

The only risk in this method is: also pinching the upper part of the spring, pinching both parts, pinching the part that holds the stem isn't needed, yet the switch seems more solid that way, yet the stem part needs to be pinched very slightly, as the green/blue part of the stem should move freely from the white part, and the upper spring might touch the white part of the stem if it's warped too much, which would cause the click to be affected / even prevented

To sum up, pinching the bottom part of the spring hard, so that it really grips the bottom housing, and pinching the upper part of the spring very slightly, so it still moves in the stem, but doesn't have as much room to vibrate -> works wonders

I will apply the method to the entire switch array soon, after the dolch keyset arrives and I have a chance to assess whether other modifications are needed, like sanding some of the keys etc. better do them before changing the keyset, as my soldering might not hold for too many keyset changes :)
So I will have a better assessment after the mod is complete, I'm guessing the keyboard will feel extremely solid / ping free, yet have slightly higher activation requirements, as this process strengthens the spring slightly

[Novus]

My new keyboard just came in with lots of ping :/
then I remember this thread.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!

[KHAANNN]

PIIINGGG!!!

I switched to red's, although the brown and blue's also share the same pingless high coiled spring, I decided to simplify things to the max. and go all in on the silence (blue's are also an option for me, with a future keyboard, yet no more pingy green's/black's/clear's)

The plate ping is still there, yet at a very reduced level, bottoming out on red's doesn't trigger it as much, it's more containable

In the meantime, I'm on the lookout for either thick plate'd keyboards, or no plated keyboards, infinity will hopefully be pingless, as the plate is stainless steel

Got a Leopold China numpad (blue switches) to test and compare to the WASD, Leopold is also able to ping, yet the ping has a reduced life, it's also lower in pitch, therefore it blends in with the keypresses, so I'm guessing, the keyboards that are deemed pingless, have mastered the ping by minimizing it, it's impossible to prevent it with metal plates, yet it might be so so low that no one can hear it

Long story short, :(, I feel your pain

[Oobly]

Hmmm... Plate resonance can be stopped with some type of rubber making contact with the plate in a few spots / areas to absorb the vibration.

It makes sense that stiffer springs "ping" more, but I have found properly lubing (particularly the area which touches / rubs the post on the bottom casing) with "proper" lube (thin Krytox or Victorinox) cures it, at least in MX Clears. I don't see lubing the lower part of the case and bottom of the spring having much effect on the white part of the slider unless you use excessive amounts.

[KHAANNN]

Hmmm... Plate resonance can be stopped with some type of rubber making contact with the plate in a few spots / areas to absorb the vibration.

It makes sense that stiffer springs "ping" more, but I have found properly lubing (particularly the area which touches / rubs the post on the bottom casing) with "proper" lube (thin Krytox or Victorinox) cures it, at least in MX Clears. I don't see lubing the lower part of the case and bottom of the spring having much effect on the white part of the slider unless you use excessive amounts.

My mod would actually be simpler on the clear switches, as there is no risk of 2-part-stem interference, I basically squeeze the spring to make it hold onto whatever it's touching, you can't squeeze the stem-end too much as it might jam the stem on blue's/green's, yet it's definitely an option on clears

For the plate, I'm not sure those mods are effective, they certainly were not in my case, maybe putting rubber inside the plate and pcb before soldering might work, but such creating such a stress isn't easy, the plate might still oscillate

Here is a photo of my mod:

It's not clear in the photo, yet the bottom of the spring is squeezed heavily, so that it really grips the pole, and the top is sqeeuez just a little bit, giving it an oval shape, so that it hold the inner part of the stem
It's possible to squeeze the top part very hard too for one part stems, as the spring will keep on working

At this point, I'm hoping that the stainless steel plate of the infinity keyboard won't ping, as for the switches, I will stick to red's/blue's

---

Edit: I see that I repeated myself a bit, for the plate tho, I even tried filling the edges of the keyboard with a reusable plastic dough that's used to stick stuff onto other stuff, also applied to the entire keyboard, squeeze-shut the keyboard, yet, even though the plate is secured and stuffed at that level, it still pings

There should probably be a metallurgical innovation / effort in this field, most keyboard makers seem to just concentrate on getting things together, I haven't seen one keyboard yet that advertises a solution to prevent plate pinging