I just happen to put my Norbatouch back into the stock ABS case because my buddy is powder coating it for me (again). It was absolutely my favorite keyboard to use daily when it was in a nice heavy case, but now it feels really cheap. Like there’s subtle rattling, the keys feel more mushy, and just overall not as great. This got me thinking, what mods did you do (on purpose) that just didn’t work out? Maybe something you thought would be a good idea than immediately changed back when you had realized what you had done?
Switch mods, case mods, weird stuff, whatever. What would you suggest people stay away from?
Lubing clicky switches! When I built my acrylic Clueboard for the first time I decided on MX whites for the build. A the time I knew lubing clicky switches wasn’t a good ideal & usually ended up in the switches loosing their click. Although it was only my third build so I was still pretty inexperienced with modding switches & I thought if I strategically lubed them very lightly I could get away with it. So I just lightly lubed the bottom housing & springs with Geekhacker’s thin Krytox mix. I stupidly thought if I didn’t lube the stem at all the lube on the bottom housing wouldn’t affect the click collar.
At first it seemed to work, the clicks were subdued even more than stock but they still clicked & the switches felt much smoother (these were pre re-tooling MX whites). Unfortunately the more I used the board the more the lube got worked around the switches & slowly but surely, one by one the switches stopped clicking. Causing me to have to de-solder all of them out of the board. Thankfully a quick soak in 99% isopropyl alcohol followed by a bath in an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner with a dab of dish soap got the lube off of all the parts & restored the clicks to them so I didn’t ruin the batch of switches. Although a lesson learned the hard way considering I had to completely rebuild that board because of it LOL!
Tried bke domes (light and ultralight) in my Realforce. I tried my best to learn to like the domes but they just weren’t for me. After trying to install the new keyclack silencing pads, I gave up on the mod and went back to full stock 55g unsilenced.
I liked BKE lights in my Novatouch but ONLY when it’s silenced. And even then I brought it back to 45g stock because I wanted something more quiet and smooth. I still keep them around for when I want something with more kick.
Topre mods are very tedious but it’s still less tedious than desoldering/top opening switches to lube or spring swap. That being said I still have nightmares about taking out all 30ish of those screws in the PCB…
I like to try weird combinations when I get new switches in to see if I discover anything interesting. Nothing good compared to the known ones yet.
The big one I hated is holy skies. I don’t know how anyone likes these. They were like the scratchiest browns. I dont know how they lost tactility in the sky housing. Might try Zealios v1 in the sky housing, otherwise I’m not sure what to do with all my leftovers.
Sky stem in a retooled blue housing is probably the most tactile mx switch, but it requires so much force that you instantly bottom out after.
The one I want to love is a linear stem in fosen housing. Sounds really nice in my tester, but the fosen housing is just too scratchy even with lube.
I expected PC Outemu Ice Click stem in Fosen housing to also be a good combination but nope. The sound was more shrill than usual. The reverse has a weird double tactile event. Seems like nothing works okay in the Fosen housing besides the original stem.
I put orings on Jailhouse blues just to experience a super short throw switch. Very unique. Somehow the soft bottom out of jailhouse blues makes the mushiness of orings more even instead of enhancing it. I’m not sure if I like it or dislike it. It’s like if MX and cheap rubber dome had a baby.
I’ve also put the 911 domes on tons of switches. Too many inconsistencies in actuation for it to really work.
Aluminium case. Bottom out feels sort of unpleasantly hard. I love the look and especially the weight, but the plastic case felt better. I guess needs some further modding.
You should be fine with just lubing the springs, I’ve done that plenty of times with clicky switches without issue. It’s when you lube the stem itself or the bottom housings that cause the issues. You basically want to keep the lube away from the click collar & you’ll be good.
O-rings: way too mushy. They reduce travel too much and create a very dead feeling switch that ends up worse than most rubber dome keyboard I’ve typed on.
Hypersphere Rings: Back in the day these were the go to for silencing Topre since there weren’t the alternatives (Keyclack Silencing and KBDfans Silencing rings) aside from o-rings which were pretty bad on Topre. These were definitely usable unlike O-rings, but in my opinion they took too much out of the travel and I didn’t like the end result. After a year of using these I took them out and never looked back.
Gatistotles - This is a mod I really wanted to like. Take the ever so clicky aristotle stem and put then in a gateron housing for a very nice refreshing click! This was the bees knees for mx clickies before jades and navys. The issue with these stems (and aristotle switches in general) is their huuuuge lack of tolerances. Many switches side by side would be audibly different, as well as feel very different. Often you’d need to cherry pick the best ones. The main issue this was caused by was the stem. Many people were able to overcome this by using tighter housings like pandas housings or newer zeal housings. I’d like to revisit this one day with the new zeal housings.
There are probably more that I need to think about hehe
Halo stem in Outemu Sky housing. Felt pretty good when individually tested but felt scratchy in use when compared next to Holy Panda or Holy Bsun, regardless of how many times they were retooled, reamed and lubed.
Also, I enjoy Halo’s bottoming out sound so neither snipping off end of Halo stem or retooling all the way through for full key travel were good options.
A tip for mitigating hard bottoming out problem: heavier spring will help reduce the problem. I now use 68g springs on alphas and 65g springs on pure mods (cuz they’re held down to use) and wide keys (cuz they make louder upstroke noise w/heavier spring).
Damn, all this talk of how bad the Outemu Skies with Halo stems combo feels has me really rethinking what I’m gonna do with the skies I just got. They do feel decent just re-tooled with a Halo stem loose, but I hear you on them feeling completely different once in a board. I basically had the same experiences with Zilents. I swapped the Zilent stem & spring into older (rd.8 I think?) Zealio housings cause I wanted them in my Red Scarf. Even lubed with Tribosys3204 they have a scratchy feel to me. Felt great when I swapped them into the same housings loose though. Not sure if it was because of the housing swap or because the Zilents were from the first batch Zeal sold of them?
I’ve been playing around more with Holy Skies recently. At first I absolutely hated them, but they took really well to 3204 (as Sky bases always do apparently). The tactility is still…weird. Sometimes I test it and hate it, but other times it’s appealing. The tactility is super long and drawn out. Tbh holy skies are very unique.
I also got Greetech RGB housings in for holy razors. Hy shit, these seem more tactile than pandas. It’s a lot like box royal where you just blast through the bump to bottom out (used green and halo clear spring). They might take better to halo true springs. Pretty wobbly and hollow sounding though.
I think I’m going to have to retract some of my regret to fiddle with all of the holy mods. It seems like any small change has a disproportionate change in feel. They’re confusing me.
Try Holy Bsun. IMO it’s closest to Holy Panda feel with only slightly reduced tactility in length and strength. Same smooth and crispy feel with delightful bottom out sound which is tad higher in pitch but still solid.
… but seriously
