That’s concerning to hear about the stabilizer noise. I had heard that OA stabilizers were quieter than Zeal, which is the main other choice. All I have to pick from right now are OA, Zeal, and C3 for the Aurora.
Of those three, do you have an opinion on which is the quietest? I thought C3 weren’t bad for sound, but I’ve had them pop out of a hotswap keyboard, so I didn’t consider them for the Aurora.
Are there stabilizers that you would choose specifically for silence?
I bit the bullet and picked one up. I grabbed an FR4 plate too. I think with the amount of cuts, it should offer decent flex and maybe give some muted sound. The PCB is hot swap so I may as well get two plates to play around with 
It probably depends on how you tune, but the Zeals have a feature these don’t - that little bit of plastic you break through with the wire, which reduces the wire rattling in the stem things. Not sure about the clips.
It’s also possible the tick isn’t actually coming from that play but from something else - I was pretty light with lubing the wire-ends. I’d say the OA stabs are pretty on-par with the Durocks, but my stab knowledge is pretty limited right now.
Hmm. That’s interesting. I was planning on using the Zeal stabilizers on the HMKB and OA on the Aurora. But maybe I should swap the two, since I don’t really care about silencing on the HMKB. It’s the same amount of stabilizers, I think, so I could do a direct swap.
Wuque is releasing a new type of stabilizer called WS. It’s supposed to be designed in such a way as to prevent the wire from popping out. But it’s GB-only right now.
Aye, I ordered some of those to go with my R2. I’m interested to see how these new ones do; one of the changes is adding rails to the inside of the stab housing like switch tops have. Aside from making them less susceptible to feeling sticky with lube, I bet it will also cut-down on the twist. 
This is not only mine, but who bought it from my country, I also asked them to look. smaller or the same cracks.
I figured this would be as good a place as any to post documentation of the clearance issue between the Ikki68 Aurora case and MT3:
I also took a closeup of the stab clearance issue with MT3, posting here because it’s OA stabs on an Ikki68A in the video but the issue definitely isn’t limited to those - if anything it affects all stabs to a greater or lesser degree, and I guess OAs are included in those that rotate just enough for MT3 to brush against itself:
good video. I have Zial stabilizers. there are no problems with them.
only that friction is at the top.
Not trying to spam this thread, I just happen to be working on one of these right now - one more note about the OA stabs and MT3:
They will stress your cap stems. 
None appear broken but you can see the stress marks at the corners and even shavings inside the stem.
Hmm, MT3 or OA stab problem you think?
Damn, does this mean that the Aurora doesn’t play nice with the MT3 profile? I literally bought a BoW set just for this keeb lmao
Yes.
That is, a little bit of both - at least with the clearance stuff. MT3 is a little larger at the bottom than most caps, and OA stabs allow for what appears to me to be a bit more than average twist.
As for the stressed cap-stems, I think that’s more just an OA stab issue - they feel really tight in caps.
@inter unfortunately I think the answer there is yes, but that doesn’t mean they won’t work at all - you just might have to do some sanding like I am to address any contact. I’m looking to finish this over the weekend, and I’ll post results when it’s done.
Sorry if I’m asking for too much, but have you tried different profiles to check if the issue is persistent?
When I get the board put together I’ll let you know about other profiles. I ended up with a different space bar getting cracked, but it looks like that may have been down to my shaky hands during removal and not purely from any stems, as all three including the center switch one cracked. The OA stabs do seem pretty tight on other caps so far either way.
I’m actually rebuilding the whole board again so I haven’t tried different caps yet, but I can confirm a method that worked for me to resolve the issue:
Aside from burnishing the small amount of flash on the bottom edges of the caps (flattening the thin ridge of plastic that sticks out), I made sure to gently pull the bezel outwards when tightening the two middle screws.
I did this on both long-edge bezels, being sure to only tighten the screws enough so they won’t back-out - they don’t need to be very tight at all thanks to the many threads and gaskets adding tension.
I did take a comparison photo of an MT3 cap vs a Cherry profile IFK one, and they are a hair taller from front to back:
All edges are flush aside from what’s sticking out there - between that fraction of a mm and the natural warping of polycarb, these caps rub on that case until you take a step or two to prevent it.
Edit: as for the stab rotation issue, I have some info on that in the MT3 ‘rubbing’ thread.
For the R2, what is the difference between the flex-cut plates? This will be my first flexy board, and I’m not sure what I’m looking at.
I can’t speak to those exact plates but I can give you some general info to work with.
Softer material tends to mean more flex and a deeper sound, with harder materials being at the opposite end. From soft to hard:
POM > PC (polycarbonate) > FR4 (circuit board stuff) > carbon fiber > aluminum > brass
POM is super soft, brass is rock hard, and the rest is on the spectrum in-between.
Flex cuts will make plates and PCBs more flexible (surprise!), but probably won’t change the sound pitch at all - they might cut down on clack sharpness.
The Ikki68 is actually a great platform to experiment with this stuff because of all the options; 5 pcbs including 2 thinner ones and one with flex cuts, and then what, 6 plate materials? If you’re really curious I’d suggest picking a couple plates and messing around.
Hard plates unsurprisingly feel hard; this means they can be satisfyingly solid but potentially fatiguing. Very soft plates can take all the edge off and add to comfort, but too soft and you might loose some speed to the soft bounciness. My two personal favorites are PC and FR4.
I picked up an extra Ikki68 the other day and had a question. Did anyone use a wireless PCB with the silicon plate pad? It seems to be incompatible because the switch for the wireless mode is on the face of the PCB and there isn’t a cutout on the pad for it. Do people just cut the pad?
EDIT- just read the build guide, and yes, you do cut it. 
that looks to be your answer about the stabs.
