LoL

“The cold cathode (CCFL) lasted one or two months. One day, when I was typing, the light started to blink and went out never to light again. Yes, it was damaged.

The problem was probably overheating of one of the transistors in the interter. As a consequence, the transistor couldn’t withstand the current demands and burnt out. The transistor was rated to support 1 A so the encapsulated T092 didn’t allow it to dissipate the heat in an effective manner. Unfortunately I didn’t find any replacement for the 2SD1616 nor an equivalent, since it should needed to be wide enough (for the keyboard I think he means) and support a high current.

With this outlook it was a few days before I decided to go with the light of the future: white LEDs. With these components I gave up having a linear and ready made source of light, but I gained efficiency and lifespan (10,000 hours = 416 days = 1.5 years of continuous operation).

So I went to various stores to buy the following components:

-5 white 5mm LEDs
-Some low ohm resistors (in case I have to limit the current)
-a bit of wood 1x1x240 centimeters (they don’t sell shorter)
-wood screws

(first picture)

The rest of the components I already had from the previous build, although I had already eliminated the CCFL and its transformer.

My idea was to place the LEDs in a uniform distribution along the stick, and connect them in series behind. But first its neccesary to know the polarity of the LEDs, and how to combine them to deal with the 12 incoming volts. After the first questions I concluded that the five LEDs in series would give the light I need and also there would be no need for resistors to limit the current.

(next picture)

To be sure I was ready to cut the stick I remeasured the width of the keyboard and found it was 42 cm. Perfect, the stick can be divided in six parts of seven centimeters each and en every division an LED can be placed. Holes were drilled to allow the LED leads to pass through and they allowed for certain movement of the LEDs so they can orient themselves as you see below.

(picture)

Once I was sure I added a little superglue so they can’t move and soldered the diodes in series with cables. It looked like this.

(picture)

Finally all that remained was to put it in place of the old flourescent and connect it to the interruptor switch. A little “bluetack” can help manage the wires.

(picture)

Conclusions: En the picture above you can see that the LEDs provide enough light on the keyboard. The picture is decieving, the LEDs are really oriented so that it creates a very diffuse and satisfactory effect. The advantages over a CCFL tube are that the white LED light is purer, weaker, gives off less heat, the EM interference is practically nonexistant, and the back of my table doesn’t look like a space ship anymore ;)”

Well what do you know… it really does say something about a spaceship in there. I’ll agree that its a fairly basic concept, and not as ambitious as most of the hacks on here, but everyone has slow news days and give the guy at least a little credit. He did do something, even if it was pretty simple. At least now you’ve got a better idea of what he did.

Maybe, if i ever buy a new keyboard, i’ll make a hack of that and upload it here :>

Steve, please ring your ISP and tell them your too leet for a non-dedicated internet service and install your own

-Fragged

the hack above wasn’t about the “hows”, it was an idea. I’m sure there are a million different ways to create a lighted keyboard. you don’t need a how to for that, so quit complaining. What i really wanna see someone do is adapt this idea and put the leds into the keyboard – a hack of a hack, if you will.

The email should be easy enough to decifer. the “removethis” part is self explanitory

In any case, to everyone who complained that this hack is useless… Think of it this way, most things viewed on a computer screen look better in the dark (movies, games, pr0n, etc) but you usually aren’t touch typing while watching pr0n so you need to be able to see where they keys are… Thus he took $3 worth in LED’s, $0.05 in resistors, a few feet of wire and a piece of wood he pulled out of the trash to hack together a way to see the keys… Genius!

That alone is reason enough to build one of these things, methinks. ;^)

(i’m not trying to start a flame war hear, but, eh, steve, look here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll at what a troll is, and ask yourself if you might be one. the first step to recovery is acceptance.)

poster #1: 1)bottom lighting is cool, but much, much harder. 2)how would you make it better? 3)can you get someone to translate it correctly?

It is fine you have something negative to say, but try to add something positive!