How in the world do I make a Holy Panda spacebar sound good?

Learning and discussion Custom keyboards
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I have a beautiful, beautiful build in the form of a KBD6x in a Royal Glam wood case, Holy YOK Burgundies, and MT3 Godspeed… but the spacebar sounds utterly awful! Any advice on how to fix this poor thing up?

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Hmm, it is tough to say exactly where your problem may lie. Although other than being disportionately louder than the other keys, your spacebar doesn’t sound super rattly or anything that could be fixed on the stabilizer itself. Did you do any sound dampening to the case or between the PCB & plate? That will help silence the whole build, but also does wonders for disportionately loud stabilized keys IME. You also have the issue of using higher profile keycaps, which IME (which is just with doubleshot ABS SA so I’m not sure how bad this effect is with PBT & MT3) has seemed to make the problem of the stabilized keys being loud AF even worse. So putting some foam or other sound dampening material in the spacebar itself should help some too.

I think between the 3 mods, case dampening has made the biggest effect on the stabilized keys in my 2 HP builds. I used MK Ultra case foams in my RedscarfII+ ver.C & ACR60 to help keep the HP noise down a bit & it worked well in both cases. That said I am using a GMK set on the RS & DCS set on the ACR60, the stabilized keys with them aren’t nearly as loud as using SA IME. So I would try stuffing the spacebar first as that is the easiest, quickest, & cheapest fix I can think of trying. Maybe somebody else will have a better idea for a quick fix?

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Have you tried cutting the bottom post?

For halo stems, they have a little extra bit on the pole that slams down on the bottom housing. Many people just clip that part off to help with the sound

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THIS. If cutting off the tip doesn’t work, use a quieter switch. I had good result with Zealios or Zilent but any of the linears should also work.

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I would second @donpark and say try a quieter switch

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I’ll try to get some spacebar foam up in the shop soon as this has helped a bit on some of my builds that I use for testing. People have been asking for it, might as well get it out there!

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Felt pads, cheap and easily removed. Not my idea, read about it here. I even bought some for my Norbauer build, but totally forgot about when I put it together. Personally, I kind of like double-slamming the space bar at the end of a sentence, there’s a note of finality that I appreciate.

I’m a weirdo.

Edit: found the link: The Heavy-6 (now resurrected in polycarbonate) - #381 by digitalmachinist

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I’m incapable of getting a good sounding 7U spacebar on any tactile switch. I often just use a heavy linear (sometimes a silent one) because my thumb doesn’t really notice the nuance of hitting space anyway aside from the weighting

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So, heres some notes:

  1. I’m pretty happy with the other stabilized keys, but not the spacebar. I don’t know if it shows up on the recording, but it sounds more… metallic? than the other keys.
  2. The spacebar seems to be a little warped, when I get the time, I’m gonna give that thing a good ol’ boiling and squishing under heavy books.
  3. The stabs aren’t band aid modded, when I take it apart, I’ll see if bandaiding the stabs changes much.
  4. The only damping I have is some small, not particularly dense pieces of packing foam in between the plate and PCB.

Overall, I think this board needs a lot of work - but I may just decide to put the switches in the hbheroinbob TKL and put linears in this poor thing.

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I also use heavier linear’s on my stab keys, Kailh ancient grey’s mostly. I also use them on my “whoopsy” keys that I find myself accidentally hitting with some frequency

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On some of my builds, I put a silencing clip (QMX or Zealencio) on the spacebar switch.

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Please do not do this to your boards. It has been proven that the bandaid mod really doesn’t do anything but be a little dust magnet on your PCB. Also it is a very crazy & super redundant mod to do when you think about it. If you want cushioned bottom outs just do not clip your stabs, that’s what the legs you clip are, for to cushion the bottom out.

I guess if you used something thicker like an actual bandaid it may have very slight sound dampening effect to the bottom out, but nothing worth it IMHO. Check out Wodan’s video on it, https://youtu.be/NjW5gga2Pik, he shows how the bottom of the stabilizer stems do not touch the PCB after clipping, which means the bandaid mod does not do anything really.

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