📅 January 21, 2022
“What?! You paid how much for glorified packing foam?”
Excuse me while I take a deep breath and regain my composure, but my minimalist pocket clip needs a moment to recuperate.
The Ducky One 3 Fuji is a pretty good mechanical keyboard out of the box, and I like it. However, it is not perfect. One tiny annoyance is the slight keyboard ping that can be heard while typing. It sounds like a “spring ping” echoing through the interior of the keyboard. Of course, the Ducky One 2 Horizon exhibited this ping too, so it is not unique to the Ducky One 3. While not a dealbreaker, the ping can become noticeable over extended typing sessions.
I had the brilliant idea of stuffing the keyboard with foam to help dampen the ping noise and make the keyboard quieter.
How do you open the Ducky One 3 keyboard without breaking it? What kind of foam did I use? Did it even work?
Here are my results…
The Foam. Oh, the Foamy Foam
Note: Nobody sponsors this. I found a product that I wanted to try and then share my experience with others who might be curious about a similar solution. Any links to Amazon are affiliate links to help readers locate the item and to help cover the time spent researching this article since I earn a commission on qualifying purchases at no extra cost to readers.
I could have used standard shipping packing foam, but I didn’t. I could have used masking tape, but I didn’t. I could have used some asbestos from an abandoned building, but I didn’t. Instead, I wanted to use something with quality and reputation…so, at random, I picked the GOKA Keyboard Foam, which was advertised as high-quality foam from Korea designed especially for keyboards to completely block echo noise.
Sounds good….until I saw the price. *GASP!* This is just foam. Why? This had better be good, and after receiving the package, my first thought was, “That’s all?”
GOKA Keyboard Memory Foam. I tried to make this look as exciting as possible. It’s foam, and you only receive one piece. Make it last.
GOKA foam beside the Ducky One 2 Horizon keyboard.
GOKA foam next to the Ducky One 3 Fuji.
The foam is about the same length and width as a full size keyboard. It feels to be a type of memory foam with a non-slip surface. However, what you see it all you get. (WYSIAYG) There is not even a box with a picture and asterisks on it. There is only one piece, and you must cut it to length and poke holes in it as needed.
The foam thickness is about 9mm thick (guessing), and it compresses well, so it should fit in practically any keyboard since it will squeeze as needed.
Opening the Ducky One 3
The first challenge was opening the Ducky One 3 keyboard and voiding the warranty. Yes, you will void the warranty, so take your time to avoid damaging the plastic case because this is not an easy keyboard to open. It took me much trial and error to figure out this plastic puzzle box.
First of all, pop the two side panels off to reveal four silver screws (two on each side).
Ducky One 3 underside. Each side has a side panel that snaps off. Take your time and be careful! Each yellow dot in the picture indicates a screw that must be removed.
There are three black screws on the bottom and four silver screws on the sides. However, the keyboard case is mainly held together with plastic snaps around the entire perimeter that must be pried open with a credit card or something similar. Again, take your time and proceed slowly because it is easy to damage the plastic case. Do not use a screwdriver to pry it apart. A metal screwdriver with dig into the plastic and create ugly pits at the seam.
Ducky One 3 with the top cover removed. There are smaller screws affixing the keyboard plate to the back plastic. They must be removed too.
Disconnect the wire and flip the top part with keys over. There is no need to remove the keyboard switches or keycaps. Beneath the plate is a thin layer of…what…foam? It is thin and stiff. Clearly what I purchased is of a more substantial quality.
Replace the thin black foam with the GOKU foam by stuffing it in the bottom and cutting holes where needed for the screws.
The foam was exactly the right size for the keyboard and fit well. It was mostly a matter of stuffing it in “just right.” The foam did not slip around and tended to stay in place due to its tacky surface. It took a little wrestling, but not much.
After that, I reassembled the keyboard to test it out.
Did It Work?
Um, no, not really.
First, despite being compression foam, it was still too thick and caused a very tight, compact sandwich of a keyboard that I did not like. Reassembling the keyboard was difficult. There is not much room to add foam in the Ducky One 3.
Second, the keyboard ping was still present. The foam made absolutely no difference at all. Spring ping was still noticeable. Nothing was dampened. I think this was mainly due to how the spring ping was being created. The ping noise was caused from the top of the keyboard plate, not the bottom. Therefore, the foam had no effect.
I am sure that if the noise echo was emanating from beneath the plate that the foam would dampen the noise, but the Ducky One 3 (and Ducky One 2) seems to echo noise along the top of the keyboard plate and reverberate the noise to the upper right of the keyboard where it tends to be the most hollow. No amount of foam will stop that. (There is no room under the top plastic to fill with foam.)
I considered this a failed project, so I removed the GOKU foam and returned the Ducky One 3 to its original state with the thin, black wafer foam. The end result was the same as before. Keyboard ping was still present.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the keyboard ping tends to be more of an issue with this specific keyboard’s acoustics than a fault of the foam itself, so no amount of foam stuffing — no matter the brand — at the bottom of the case will help. Of course, I am not an expert when it comes to keyboard modding (at least not yet), so I have much to learn.
I believe the GOKU foam might work better in custom keyboards designed for this type of modding, but for the Ducky One 3, the foam did not help at all.
I was not expecting to learn so much about keyboard acoustics from this project, so I feel like I have leveled up my EXP and do not consider it a total loss. My main question at this point is deciding what to do with an expensive piece of foam. Maybe I should a high-end mechanical keyboard with authentic GMK keycaps to put the foam to use? Hopefully, this offers some insight and ideas for others seeking to resolve a similar keyboard ping issue.
Have fun!
Delightly Linux 