[Nashaz]

This is a small guide as to how you can mod any old (or new) kb that u have lying arnd... Will be updating the guide soon, but here's some teasers...

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[Nashaz]

Keyboard Mod Guide

Things you need:
Soldering iron (preferably 40w or more)
Solder
Flux
Heatshrink
Solid core wire

Paint of your choice (I used Nippon paint)
Sand paper (Anything between 1000 to 1500grit)

Power Drill + various drill bit sizes
Hot Glue Gun
Some led’s
Screw driver
Cutting Pliers/Scissors

Mini engineers vice (optional)
Cable ties (optional)
Sleeving (optional)
Mini Hand Drill (optional)
Dremel/Saw + File (optional)

Things to note:
For the led’s:
If u want to illuminate your kb in the dark, you need ultra bright led’s. Best would be wide ultra bright 100 degree throwing angle, white led’s that I used in this mod.

For Soldering:
It would greatly help if u have flux (to aid in the soldering process) as well as solder sucker or solder wire to remove excess solder.

Glue Gun:
One of the most important tools in mounting the led’s/pcb/wiring. Make sure u have enough glue sticks as I used about 3 in this mod.

For drilling:
I used a hand drill as well as a power drill as for drill bit sizes I will have to update again. But if you have a drill bit box with all the various drill sizes, u can just roughly measure the drill needed by trial and error.

When soldering up the led’s:
I did not need to use any resistors in this mod because the pcb I soldered the led’s to already had some resistors. If you choose to solder your led’s to the 5v line directly, take note you will need the appropriate resistor to pair up with the led you are soldering up.

For the Wire:
Do not use regular wire that has copper/aluminium strands that are twisted together. Solid core wires, as the name implies, uses a single solid wire through its length. Reason for this is because after soldering, the wire is more rigid then regular wire and the connection cant break easily even when handled roughly.


Mini Engineer's Vice (optional)


Solid core wire + Cutting Pliers


Mini Hand Drill (optional)


Ultra high powered wide angle White leds (in the plastic bag)


Flux (round container) + Soldering iron, Solder, Glue gun Screwdrivers

[Nashaz]

The 1st thing to do is to carefully pry it open the keyboard. What you are looking for is the connectors/PCB for the led lights in the KB. Usually there is one pcb inside, but as for my case, i had 2 because of the media center keys.










This is what you are looking for:







If it comes with a ribbon cable, be very careful not to break the connector or the cable. The connector (lockable type) is especially fragile.







This is the secondary pcb + cable anchor in my KB. thankfully the usb cable is detachable.










Make sure you keep those screws properly as its extremely difficult to get replacements...

[Nashaz]

Mod for Standard leds w/o the need for any drilling of holes:

After extracting the PCB, desolder the leds using either some solder wire (copper wire that has property that makes wet solder stick to it) or a solder sucker.

Easiest way to desolder would be to have a mini table vice clamping the workpiece so that you have both hands free to work with.

This is the original pcb,










After being desoldered:
do keep the removed leds for any future projects/mods...







Original mod, just used whatever leds i found lying arnd the house; from old/discarded pc's...








And the result:




Not too bad... you can use any colour or type of led that you want, just make sure it works before soldering it on. (that is if you are unable to locate the resistor to the leds and/or calculate the resistance required) by default most keyboards shouldn have any problem, even with high brightness leds.

You can put everything back together and use the kb or you can continue on with the mods...

[Nashaz]

Rest of the mods + Spray Painting

NOTE: MAKE SURE YOU SPRAY PAINT ONLY AFTER DRILLING ALL THE HOLES. BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THIS PROJECT (IDEAS FLOWING IN RANDOMLY) I SPRAYED BEFORE DRILLING HOLES ETC. PLS USE YOUR DISCRESSION WHEREVER POSSIBLE.


Original base: make sure you remove any loose parts like feet ect.







Mark out and drill a few holes. I made 3. Try not to go overboard with too many leds as the kb pcb will not be able to power them all up w/o you tapping power from the 5v line directly.



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Make sure the leds sit nicely before proceeding.

If you are planning to spray your KB, Now would a good time to do so. I used Nippon Paint, Black Night. Nice candy coat finish to it. Best way to get a nice smooth glossy finish is not in layers of paint but a single relatively thick layer of paint.

This method is rather tricky as too little paint will cause patches, and too much will give you drip marks, so stick to standard layers if you wanna stay on the safe side. Do make sure you sand the plasic down before spraying. No primer is needed.

Lastly, the prepping varies differently for each keyboard so just use your discretion for the kb that you are modding.

NOTE:
Make sure you wait 2 weeks for the paint to fully HARDEN (not dry but harden) if you are using my method of spraying so that when you continue to work on it, it doesn get damaged. [you will see how it does if you choose not to wait ]

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For the bottom half, You can just start spraying after drilling the holes.

[Nashaz]

The top half involves abit more work, If you are planning to replace the number lock, scroll lk and caps lock lights with leds similar to my mod, then you will need to drill come holes. If not you can skip that step

Then remove any plastic that sheilds the leds. And lastly, you would have to remove all the keys.

An angled plier will help greatly.











DRILL HOLES BEFORE SPRAYING
Also dont forget to drill 2 small holes on both sides of the kb for the lights later on.





Lastly, make sure you cover up all the highlighted holes before spraying. Make sure you sand down and wash any loose particles away before starting this step. a small piece of masking tape shd work nicely for each hole. (orange circle)

Reason is to prevent paint from getting into the hole. Prevents the keys from jamming later on.

[Nashaz]

You can try to paint the keys as well, did a test on one, but to get the lettering back onto the key proved to be difficult so scrapped that for now.

But if u like blank KB, you can go ahead with painting the keys as well. Just make sure you label the keys underneith so that you know which ones go where after drying. And make sure you dont get any paint on the key shaft.

[Nashaz]

Use some hot glue to mount the led into place. Make sure the soldering ends are pointed in the right direction and seperated from each other before mounting it down.








After that, wire up all the leds in parallel to the num lock/scroll lock/ or caps lock. I used the numlock as i didn want to use the caps lock. Cant have the lights on when you are typing. Also, was keeping the scroll lock for the night lights.

A small tip: put in the heatshrink before soldering so that you can insulate the wires properly and easily, but dont heat it up until everything is soldered and tested out.







Again i must reiterate, use solid core wires as normal wires will easily give way.

[Nashaz]

But later on, i replaced everything with these lights instead.



You can find these lights at SLT easily. But as for the btm row of red leds, i need to shorten them in order to close the kb properly. (The red led is the modded one)

[Nashaz]

This is how i did the wiring for the red leds:











Wired in Parallel and used some hot glue to insulate the exposed wires as well as to keep the wiring layout neat.

[Nashaz]

also replaced the indicator leds.







I tried to use this^ to aid in connecting the wires after assembling the 2halves together but they were too bulky and could not sit in properly. so had to solder the wires on assembly.

Also had to remove all the old leds from the pcb. Soldered some wires on so that it would aid the soldering process on assembly. Dont forget to add some connections to the white lights to illuminate your keyboard at night. (from scroll lk)





Due to the nature of this new mod, i am unable to place the led pcb back into its original place. So i also used some hot glue to mount it.

[Nashaz]

Cut out some slots in the ribs at the side to route the wires neatly.








Also, the wire you can see branching out towards the left of the picture are for the white leds.

I actually planned to wire up 3 white leds for the mod, but in the end only did 2. However i still did the wiring for the last led so that i can add it on later even though the project was finished.

in order to easily branch out leds from a single wire. just use your soldering iron to expose some wire by melting the plastic at that section. Then solder on the wire and use some hot glue to insulate and mount.

[Nashaz]

Connect up any remaining loose connections and test to see that they all power up before reassembling.

NOTE:
Make sure that you DO NOT SOLDER THE WHITE LEDS ON before assembling as you will not be able to put the kb back w/o 1st removing them. just manually connect them together to test 1st.

If your kb is an old kb, you might want to wash the keys 1st before putting everything back together.

[Nashaz]

Testing of the wiring...





And finally, after assembling the 2 halves together and soldering up the connections for the indicator leds, then you can fix up the night lights.






You can add some sleeving to it to look better like i have.

[Nashaz]

And your final product!







In Order to make it sync to music, all you got to do is download winamp and a plug in called keyboard lights 2 for winamp. just follow the steps given in the plugin download and your done!.

this plugin also works for any keyboard but note that you cant do much typing when running this plugin, it gives you random caps locks.