Here's a small update to the o-ring situation.Pituophis wrote:
This was a few days ago, but Thnikk provides excellent customer support.
I had an issue with one press registering multiple clicks. He did everything he could to help me.
In the end, I found out on my own that it seems the o-ring(I believe it reduces the key's travel distance by 0.4 mm) was keeping the key on the edge of pressed and not pressed so when I pressed down it would register as multiple clicks. Removing the o-rings fixed it and hasn't ever registered multiple clicks from one press since.
I'm switching from wasdkeyboards 40AR o-rings to clear ones from ebay. This is both as a cost saving measure and a choice ofut of preference. I took keycaps off an older keypad today and found remnants of blue rubber on top of the switch, something that could make its way into the switch pretty easily and gunk it up. For the somewhat outrageous $20 per pack of 120, they aren't something I really want to use anymore if this is a potential issue.
On the other hand, these clear o-rings from ebay offer a few positives. I can put them on any keycap and they won't make a visible colored ring, which will work particularly well with the transparent keycaps, they're more firm which results in less of a feel difference but the same reduced travel and sound dampening, and the firmness should also contribute to less "rubber rubbing" resuting in less drebris.
They're also a little bit smaller. This is good, because using multiple 40-ar wasd o-rings in one keycap caused occasional issues (like in Pituophis's case) with being too big to offer granular enough steps of travel distance. What does this mean and why would you need multiple o-rings in one keycap?
Almost all of my keycaps DO NOT have the scructural pieces that hold the stem in place. This isn't bad for the keycaps as they're only necessary with the use of thinner plastic, but it does mean multiple o-rings need to be used per keycap instead of just one for them to actually be doing anything, since bottoming-out refers the switch, not the keycap.
In summary, the change should result in:
A cleaner look for the inside of the keycaps, which is more important for any transparent keycaps
No unexpected debris gunking up the switches
Reduced travel and sound without making the switches feel too soft
No keys not registering because too much reduced travel from o-rings
They are of course still removable so if you don't like the feel you can just take them out.