[GB] the Norbaforce Mark II

whoops, now I have to buy another realforce r2

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Oh boy, you’re killing my wallet here :joy:

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Dang I wish I went for the steel plate, prob woulda made this thing a big chonker

Damnit… there goes my self control again.

I’m interested! I just put on Deskeys RGB rings and relubed with 3203 and I’m already pleased with how it sounds but always open to more acoustic enhancement!

I’d be interested in hearing this as well.

I used Deskeys #5, 3204, and my own gasket sealer on each individual plastic slider housing (after popping them out of the steel plate). Once the sealant cures, the housings are completely silent. I’m talking night-and-day difference.

There is absolutely no rattle whatsoever. It’s something I’ve done to my Heavy-6, HHKB, and the RGB. A little tedious, sure, but it’s perfection.

Yes, this is the problem I’ve been working on. It’s particularly bad on the RGB (at least the unit that I have). My experiments suggest that adding a small compressible gasket around the slider housings eliminates play between the housings and the plate, and I’m working on a design for that right now.

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You can also use thick lubricant to silence the housings in the plate. I used 205g0 and it is, indeed, a drastic change for the better

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Geekhack: ONLY lube THESE TWO PARTS OF THE HOUSING for topre switches!
Keebtalk: lube the plate lmao

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I hadn’t read about it before I found the mod by accident. I was putting deskey rings on my Novatouch. I had it all apart and sliders removed and it was then I discovered how bad the housings rattle in the plate. You could seriously use this thing as a percussion instrument. Topre maracas.

I’m sure gasket material is a better solution, but I did what I know how to do best to silence rattles… I put lube on it. It’s an easy mod b/c you can just paint down the plate quickly once the housings are out. I was shocked that it completely silenced the rattle between the housings and the plate, but it did. :slight_smile:

A lot of the rattle is eliminated when the PCB and plate are screwed together, and the singular sheets of domes almost act as a gasket/dampener for the slider housings.

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That’s what I find too. Only a couple housings have any play once screwed down.

My method isn’t necessarily about removing “play” or wiggle room — but rather completely changing the sound profile. But yes, the compression between the plate and PCB certainly does its job by default. The lengths I go to just take it a step further. It completely removes all plastic-on-metal rattle (inside the R2 RGB). I’ve done before-and-after sound tests and the sample sounds like an entirely different board.

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The slider housings move so freely in my board that I suspect that even though the rubber domes do dampen and gasket the housings when the plate is screwed on, there is a still a bit of movement there against the compression of the rubber, which would agree with the observations others have made here about high-viscosity lubes eliminating improving the sound. Per-housing gaskets seems like the might be a permanent solution to the issue, but it does require popping the housings out to install them. I shall experiment.

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I know with cherry style switches that switch films still improve the acoustic profile even if the housing is tight so I could see the same being applicable here. Is your workflow documented anywhere?

Just send me an extra R2 board and a polycarb Mark II and I’ll try it out for you. :wink:

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Is this an issue in all the R2 boards or just the RGB?

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I don’t know that I would call it an “issue.” This is really the default sound of a topre board. You don’t notice the difference until you try the mod. But I would say it is more pronounced in the R2 boards. Similar to the sound of a Novatouch. That’s been my experience having used a R1, Novatouch, FC6606, and a R2.

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Ah okay, maybe issue was the wrong word. My only topre experience this far is really my novatouch, which I never really had any issue with. I’ll have to play around with my R2 when I get it in, I want this board to be the absolute best it can be.

My experience has been that it is more pronounced on the RGB. I have never had any complaints about any other Topre board, including the other R2 models. This makes a kind of sense since the RGB required making new slider housings that aren’t shared with other models.

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