Yeah, I tried some tape on the bottom, wasn’t a big fan of it. It does make sense about gummy o-ring is “purest” in terms of sound, as just a switch with keycap is pretty similar in terms of sound as in the Bakeneko, same configuration.
If you are using high profile keycaps (SA, MT3, even KAT), try to switch to lower profile like Cherry, this will raise the pitch of the sound.
Otherwise, yes, foam.
Question: how much space there is between PCB and case on the Bakeneko ? 4mm, 5mm ?
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Yup, I’m using Cherry. I’ll try to measure it when I’m back home, but I think around 3-5 mm.
If it is around 3mm, this is rather low and you may sacrifice flex/bounce by adding foam and gain very little, but if it start at 4mm …
I don’t think that’s really a good comparison. The point here is to absorb vibrations traveling from one half of a case to the other, reducing structure-borne resonance (especially in cases where the top half has significantly less mass than the bottom). Switch stickers/films are more for adding thickness in order to shore up loose tolerances.
This may just be considered another kind of foam, but poly-fil might be worth a try. It’s stuffed-animal / pillow stuffing; a bag less than $5 should cover lots of keebs. Doesn’t really need to be dense in there, either, from what I understand - just stick in some fluff and you’re good.
At least in some keebs, poly-fil can put a hush on hollowness - if it doesn’t improve your Bakeneko, chances are it can improve some other keeb you come across.
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I actually just bought a bag of polyfill to try out in a few boards, here’s a keyboard next to an $8 (16oz) bag for scale:
Pardon my messy desk lol. I’d guess this would be enough for around 30 boards.
Extra angle for extra context:
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So I decided to try this mod on my Meridian, mostly because @hellla did it to theirs & noted sound improvements.I can confirm it helps even with a solid board like the Meridian. Honestly I was happy with the way it sounded before the force break mod, but figured I might as well give it a shot. With this board it cleans up the sound a little bit, kills any case ping (I didn’t have much if any with my unit though), & mutes the sound ever so slightly. No huge changes in sound, but it is noticeably cleaner sounding like I said before. Still need to do the mod on my KBD8X mkII & Devastating TKL as they are much worse offenders with case ping, but doing it to my Meridian proved to me it will be well worth doing with those boards.
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I find it amusing that you can spend big $$$ on switches, cases, and keycaps - and inexpensive tape can improve a keyboard’s sound so much
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I’m glad you gave it a try! Yeah I didn’t find issue with my Meridian pre force break mod either, but the difference is subtle yet noticeable and I’m enjoying it on this board a lot.
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Did this on my Modern M0110 today. Drastic change in sound when tapping on the bezel. Space bar sounds much better when typing, for sure. Wish there was a material we could use like this that didn’t leave residue. I’m fine with putting tape on and leaving it, but it’s going to be a mess a few years from now if I want to remove it. I guess since it’s metal we can use safely use Isopropyl to remove it.
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I think that everything that is soft enough can do the trick, no need for adhesive.
Maybe vinyl should work, like what we use for switches, we could even think of an industrial way of providing laser cut sheets of vinyl designed for specific keyboard models.
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