alps how to dampen bottoming out ?

[nourathar]

Hi,

I've come to like the clickyness of White alps (clones so far, a board with white complicated alps is on the way in the mail), but I am wondering if there is way to dampen the bottoming out sound. On Cherry MX switches one would use O-rings, and I've seen O-rings tested on Alps over on GH. Those were O-rings over the switching part and I haven't found any evidence of someone actually using that. Also I'm really not sure that would actually really work ?
see: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=257 ... #msg486276

I guess I have two questions:

1: Is there an Alps equivalent of Elite Keyboards soft landing pads ?
see: http://elitekeyboards.com/products.php? ... ess,slpads
Something along those lines seems way more promising than O-rings in the case of Alps.

2: What do dampened alps actually dampen ?

ciao,

J.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Damped Alps switches have little rubber dampers on either side of the slider:

1280px-Damped_sliders.jpg (123.23 KiB) Viewed 5907 times

These cushion both bottoming out and the return, damping the slider in both directions.

[davkol]

derp

[nourathar]

Thanks Daniel en Davkol for these replies.

I think I will try the EK pads: they might also be handy for some of the other boards I have.

But in the meantime I became the owner of a nice Northgate Omnikey keyboard with vintage white alps and also of a Silicon Graphics 'Granite' keyboard with dampened Alps. I like them both very much as tactile experiences, but now I am wondering whether it would not be possible to combine their best points: I like the tactility and the 'click' of the white alps, and I like the relative absence of bottoming out and return sounds of the cream alps. Would it be possible to combine the cream slider with the clicky plate of the white alps for instance ? Has such a switch ever been produced ? Would it work ?

(I am asking this, being fully aware that I even haven't taken the trouble so far to take both switches apart to see what is inside them....)

ciao,

J.

[nourathar]

Ok I just tried putting the slider from a cream/dampened alp into the white alps switch from my Northgate and that seems to work. Apart from the two rubber 'cushions' at the side I also see no difference whatsoever. I only did the exchange for one switch so it is bit hard to judge how this will be in typing, but the modded switch makes a nice pleasant 'thud' and it doesn't have much of the rattle when the key comes back up, and it still has the distinct click and tactile experience.

But after some trying I realize that there is a very subtle difference in the tactile experience: in the modded switch, just before bottoming out, there is a slightly gritty feeling that isn't there in either the white switch or the dampened switch. When I look at the switch housing with the internals taken out, the dampened switches have slightly higher 'bottom-out-bumps' than the white ones. So in my modded switch I presume that these bumps hit the cushions less than they should.

Now my new question is whether the Mattias Quiet switches have slider stems that are also exactly the same and compatible with these vintage complicated white alps ? From the picture that Daniel posted I would say yes. It is a bit hard to see, but it could be that on the Mattias sliders the cushions are a tad larger. If I assume that Mattias did not make two separate variants of switch housing (with higher and lower bumps), than this slight difference could perhaps be intended to compensate for the lower bumps ? So that means that they would also work in my vintage white switches ? Does this make any sense ?

ciao,

J.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

You appear to be correct. The Matias Quiet switch has the same almost flat "bumps" as the Matias Click switch, which will be why the dampers extend down below the slider (where they didn't with the cream Alps). The two switches have identical, interchangeable shells.

I've also successfully fitted a Matias Quiet slider into both an orange Alps and a complicated white Alps switch, and it works just fine. You just have reduced switch travel.

[nourathar]

Hi Daniel,

great, thanks a lot for the reply and for actually trying it out; it is always nice to get an answer from somebody who really knows. I've ordered a bunch of mattias quiet switches and i'm planning a mod of my Northgate keyboard now...

ciao, J.

[Muirium]

I remember Daniel experimenting with hybrid Matias switches, but a quick search of the forum yields nothing. Anyway, the potential combination I'd most like is a damped clicky. Not sure if it's possible, exactly.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

You do? I don't. I shall have to hire you to be my memory. (You're possibly thinking of my finding that removing the actuator leaf from an Omron B3G-S makes it feel incredible — someone asked me whether doing this to Matias switch had the same effect, but I never tried it, as switch design isn't my thing.)

I did also swap the leaves between the two types last night. I didn't notice anything worthy of mention. The quiet switch clicks fairly loudly if struck off-axis (something I notice with the Quiet Pro). I tried holding down the switches on the edge of a table to amplify the sound, and I kept getting the click problem with the quiet switch.

Yes, you can fit the damped slider to the clicky switch just fine. The parts of the two switches are fully interchangeable.

[Muirium]

You do? I don't. I shall have to hire you to be my memory.

Here we go:
http://deskthority.net/keyboards-f2/top ... ky#p124287

Trouble is, I'd be a biased memory. I only remember things I'm also thinking about. All this Cherry G80 stuff is still Byzantine Greek to me.

Perhaps Matias is a good starting point for learning how to delve inside a switch. These guys are still on sale (cheap too, via 7bit) so it's not a problem if I break them while in the act.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

That was back in September — you don't seriously expect me to remember ancient history do you?

[nourathar]

ordered a bunch of Matias switches from 7bit; when they arrive i will do some more experiments with hybrid switches and see how they are in real use.....

[Muirium]

And in a month or so I'll remember to ask you how it turned out!

I'm most interested in damped clicky hybrids. But the inverse is also worth knowing: as I'd have one of those for every damped clicky that I make. Also see if you can figure out how to make a linear Matias, damped preferably. If we can mod an entire range out of them, all the better.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Linear is trivial: just remove the click leaf or tactile leaf. It will reduce the force quite bit, but the popularity of MX red suggests that this is only a good thing. I really don't get why Matias don't sell linears.

After making the damped click switch, you'll be left with the other switch Matias don't make but should: undamped tactile, i.e. a nice clacky switch.

We should set up Deskthority Switch Reassembly PLC, and have a little factory making all the switches Cherry and Matias refuse to sell, including Matias Clack switch and Cherry MX ergo clears. The only snag with the latter is that, unless we can produce our own slider mouldings, we won't get to choose a new colour for the slider. There's that guy making replacement switch shells, so that would work nicely, but Cherry MX Magenta would be better.

[Muirium]

Care to hazard a guess whether the spring weight is any different between Matias tactile and click? MX Red is a nice enough switch, but I'm too heavy handed for them. Same for Browns. Likely ditto Ergo Clears; which should have pink sliders, of course, as a redder shade of Clear!

A more magical kind of pony would be switches with higher activation points.

[nourathar]

a bag of Matias 'tactile' switches and some of their clicky ones finally arrived !

The clicky ones seem very similar to the white Alps clones in my Siig Minitouch, and those are perhaps my favourite switches so far. But that is hard to judge for an unmounted switch. I still have to mount them to really compare.

So far I only had time to experiment a little bit on the white Alps in the numberpad of my Northgate: I exchanged the original stems of these switches with the dampened stems of the tactile Matias switches and I really like the results so far:

- the rattling sounds are mostly gone: what stays is a nice discrete and precise click, still pretty loud, a great sound that sounds like a switch and not like pieces of plastic in action

- all the 'balkyness' of these ancient complicated switches has gone: action is very smooth and light. It seems the Matias switches are lubricated, so the new stems have some grease on them, which might explain this in part. But I have noticed before that old Northgate switches seem to become more smooth simply by opening them up and putting them back together; it might be the clickleafs that feel different after re-inserting them or it might be the removal of dirt in the switch ? Or I might be dreaming this since it makes no sense.

- due to the little rubber cushions, key travel is a tiny bit shorter, but you get a nice soft landing in return and I don't think it bothers me.

So for now I am really happy about these dampened clicky complicated white alps, and I think I will mod all the switches in my Northgate in this way as soon as I have the time. Makes me sort of wonder why these switches were never used in boards ? But then cream Alps were already quite rare too, and I guess the main motivation for those was total silence..

Only question now is whether I will use the original springs or the springs from the Matias switches, which are much longer and which give an ever so slightly more stiff result. A minute difference, but I think I like the stiffer variety better. Would be nice if you could buy Alps springs in various strengths like you can buy Cherry springs....

Next step will be to try out how Matias dampened clicky simplified white alps clones feel and sound.

J.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

This is another comment which makes me wonder just how much variation there was between Hua-Jie switches. The SIIG Minitouch I have is so stiff, the only person who could type on it is Arnie. It's way, way worse than white Alps for stiffness.

However, clones do seem to be free from the binding problems that afflict white Alps. Blue Alps is a lot better and it's exceptionally smooth.

[nourathar]

Wow, that is weird: it could be down to variation between batches of production or perhaps it depends on how keyboards have been treated during their sometimes not so easy lives ?
I think the Minitouch I have hardly saw any use and it was very clean when I got it. Since two days I now have two Northgate boards, and one is much stiffer and balkier than the other, and the stiffer one happens to be the one that had all kinds of insect nests in it when it arrived: I suppose it spent a considerable portion of its life in someones humid or hot (or both) garage.

I suppose you have seen much more different Alps boards than me, but I own five now, and if I list them in ascending order of (wholly subjective) smoothness it would go something like this:

- Dell AT102W (black Alps, board in bad shape and extremely scratchy, some keys much more stiff than others)
- Northgate Omnikey Ultra (complicated white Alps)
- Northgate Omnikey 102 (idem, big difference with Ultra)
- Silicon Graphics Granite (cream Alps)
- Siig Minitouch (white Alps clones, the switches in this one feel a lot like new Matias clicky switches..)

There was a Minitouch NIB on Ebay a while back, and it had all the signs of being one with Blue Alps, but unfortunately the sellers took it off Ebay before I could have a go at it..
If you say blue Alps are exceptionally smooth, do you mean the Monterey clones or the blue Alps that came before the whites ?
I've been trying to get a board with these blue clones, but no luck so far: they tend to be expensive !

J.

[Muirium]

Life is like a box of Alps.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

The SIIG Minitouch only had the blue SMK switches and white Alps clones. So far as I know, the "Monterey" SMK switches aren't clones, they're genuine SMK parts (both Chicony and Monterey have confirmed this to me). "Blue Alps" means actual Alps SKCM switches (part number SKCMAG, according to Alps.tw).

Alps clones seem to be well-made and reliable, and smooth, but just terribly stiff. Ducky ordered custom reduced weight switches from Xiang Min — I have a 5-pack each of green (clicky) and black (linear) on order from Mechanical Keyboards for comparison to my XM samples.

I dug out my white Alps keyboard again earlier at work — it desperately needs lube, but it's usable. (I wanted to return to my Filco for a bit, but the switches are failing.)

[nourathar]

here some of the action yesterday evening: I replaced all such stems and springs in the 60% center part of my Ultra board with the dampened stems and slightly stiffer springs taken from Matias quiet switches.
Typing is great: smooth, clicky, precise, but without most of the keycap rattle. I'm still getting used to it, but currently I would say this is my favourite switch. Not perfect, but nice.

ultrageek.jpg (149.91 KiB) Viewed 5482 times