Chris writes – “This is my (our) first modification. We got the inspiration from Arkku on flickr. We did ours a bit differently, he used 1 LED, we used 2. The process is the same for each. Since there are only 5 volts to work with, both versions require the circuit to be built in parallel. I just have one more parallel circuit in my mod. There are two options for this mod. One involves removing the circuit board, the other leaves it in and splices the connecting wire. The choice is yours.” Link.
16 thoughts on “HOW TO – Make a glowing keyboard”
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I like the explanation of the steps envolved. It helps someone like me to learn, and understand simple things as resistors.
Another idea for lighted kbs is to drill holes under the keys in between the connections and shining light up through the keys.
I like the explanation of the steps envolved. It helps someone like me to learn, and understand simple things as resistors.
Another idea for lighted kbs is to drill holes under the keys in between the connections and shining light up through the keys.
I like the explanation of the steps envolved. It helps someone like me to learn, and understand simple things as resistors.
Another idea for lighted kbs is to drill holes under the keys in between the connections and shining light up through the keys.
ooppsss. stupid javascript errors when posting.
running LEDs, or any diode, in parallel is a bad idea.
one of the LEDs will burn out, and then as soon as its dead and is providing no voltage drop, the other LED also burns out.
and usually it doesn’t take very long to burn the first one.
dioxide
You’re thinking series, not parallel. Each parallel circuit is separate.
If one burns out it series, I’d lose both LEDs and the keyboard. In parallel there is no problem. If you look at the wiring diagram, you can see that a break on one LED won’t effect the other. The resistors prevent LED burn out. The resistor would burn out before an LED would. We built this circuit with a bit of extra resistance so there is actually less voltage drop, the LED should last a touch longer.
This was checked by my father in law (Lissa’s dad), he’s an electrical engineer and has been designing circuits professionally for over 30 years. But thanks for the interest.
My keyboard mod is no longer visible immediately through the link in this post, but it’s on Make blog here: http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/10/how_to_make_a_glowing_apple_ke.htm
Agh, typoed the address:
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2005/10/how_to_make_a_glowing_apple_ke.html