OCUK Cherry MX Keycaps and Rubber O-Ring Mod Review

Installation and Performance

Installing the O-ring mods is a lengthy job, as all of the keys require a ring mod on each stem. Putting one on is a tricky task and to completely equip all of the new key caps took over an hour to complete; this is despite the fact I had someone helping me!

The end result speaks volumes, the matte white finish of the key caps beam out against the black keyboard.

They really do look stunning and if your keyboard is starting to look a little tired, this is a great way of sparking fresh life into it.

While there are other colour choices available, I’m very happy with these white ones; although I admit they may need a little extra care to keep them nice and clean.

The key caps are all of a very high quality in terms of construction, and no faults were found throughout the installation process. Except for the fact I can see the caps lock key is sticking up a little, nothing I didn’t fix afterwards by pushing it all the way onto its stem.

It took 20 minutes to strip and clean the keyboard of its original key caps, an hour to install the O-Ring mods on the new key caps and a further 45 minutes to install the key caps on the keyboard; so as you can tell, this was no small job.

The final result was certainly worth it, the key caps get my approval in terms of aesthetics and tactile sensation, but how do the O-Ring mods perform?

With the O-Ring mods fitted to the stock Mionix Zibal 60 key caps, it was time to test out the acoustic levels of the switches. First I mashed away at the WASD keys, a heavy and fast typing action where my fingers were lifting away from the keys between strokes. I then did rapid presses through W, A, S and D with my fingers staying in contact with the key cap. These two tests gave us a look at acoustic levels when you may be frantically mashing keys while gaming or casually typing a document.

First we have the stock Mionix key caps, you can clearly see that the O-Ring mods shave off a few decibels. The Blue O-Rings took the noise from 63 to 55dBa in the mash test and 58 to 47 in the press test; that’s a huge reduction in acoustic levels.

The space bar is still pretty noisy even with the ring mods installed, but there is still a clear reduction of around 4 to 6 dBa with ring mods installed.

Now we have the OCUK double shot key caps installed, interestingly these keys are noisier than the stock ones in the mash test, but quieter in the press test. The O-Ring mod kits quickly solve the extra noise problem and once again you can see up around 10 dBa shaved from the mash tests and 5-10 from the press tests, very impressive!

The new space bar cap is a lot quieter than the stock one, shaving off a few more dBa. The new space bar is even quieter again with the O-Ring mods, with the clear and the black being the best performers.