Im using my first mechanical keyboard and the experience has been great so far but, it is quite loud, especially at night, which cheap mods i can make to make it quieter while i can do something like changing the switches?
Depends on your board. I had a Redragon K530, here are the list of mods I applied to it in order of price:
- Put foam on the bottom (the type of foams that come with PC components works great), stuff like this
- Added O-rings
- Replaced the switches with Redragon A113 Bullet-QT soft tactile
I think the switches made the biggest impact, but that’s also the most expensive and it requires your board to be hot swappable.
Deskmat under the keyboard
Tape and/or foam mods in the case (will change the pitch of the sound, which might disturb less)
O-rings, but these will change how they keyboard feels. I didn’t like them
Foam inserts for keycaps - like o-rings but foam. never tried them
Lubricating the stabilizers - should mitigate some space and enter key rattle
If your keyboard supports hotswap, new switches are a more expensive option.
Edit: The person who invented markdown WYSIWYG text editors is on my shit list
As suggested by the other commenter, o-rings are the best cheap solution.
Another option that works if your keyboard has a hollow body is sound-dampening insulation inside the frame.
I have a Kinesis Advantage that has a ton of negative space inside and simply putting some non-conductive foam inside the shell made a huge difference in the amount of noise it makes
I have that same keyboard. I love it! I got one for my wife too, and she loves it as well. But unlike me, she struggles going back and forth between that and a regular keyboard.
I feel her pain. It took me a long time to get comfortable with the Kinesis, and even longer to be able to go back and forth with my gaming keyboard seamlessly
It took me about 3 weeks to surpass my regular typing speed on the Kinesis, but I never had any issues going back to a regular keyboard. The only fucked up thing was changing keybinds for games, since I can’t reach some of them on the Kinesis with the split keywells. Then if I play on a different computer none of the binds match. I’m sure I could program another layer on the Kinesis to overcome the mismatch, but I never took the time to learn about all of its amazing features.
If you are using it on a hard surface, consider placing a mat under your keyboard, it’ll dampen the sound of keystroke.
cheapest and easiest mod is probably o-rings
Keyboard O-RINGS: Installation & Sound Test (good or nah??)
changing out switches can also be relatively easy but can def be more costly
If you are using choc switches, the new ambients are made to be silent, and so far it has worked great for me
The easiest way to make it quieter is to press the keys less hard. Unlike bubble dome keyboards, you don’t have to press mechanical keys all the way down.
