Installing LED on cherry switches

[ekw808]

Hey guys, I noticed that the razer marauder was able to change the LED to various colors that were controlled by a program. Does anybody know if I were to install RGB LED's on my cherry switches if the same would be possible. Also I tried looking for instructions on how to actually install LED's and to properly sod them onto the board, but it was nowhere to be found. If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it (If the razer marauder color setup is possible, and where there are DIY instructions on installing LED lights and the on/off controls for them).

Thanks

[Clickey]

Sure I can help. I thought the marauder was a rubber dome though? Or are you talking about putting it in a Filco or other cherry switch keyboard? Because it would not work unless the PCB is designed to take LED's.

Installing LED's just requires insertion into the slot at the bottom of the switch from the top and soldering. Also the LED has to be in the correct orientation.

[alaricljs]

To add to those details there has yet to be manufactured an RGB led of the appropriate size to fit in a Cherry switch.  There isn't enough room for the leads.

[ekw808]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yrRSnH0rREM

These are RGB LED's right?

[alaricljs]

Those are most likely 2 lead RGB LEDs... you provide power, the LED does all the color change and flashing on it's own.  No logic involved, no control involved.  This is why you don't see any cool left/right top/bottom sweeps or rainbow changes... Just pure red, green and blue.

[ekw808]

Ive searched for a pretty long time, but I just cant find that picture that was posted oh gh with what the PCB looks like under the individual switch, there were 2-4 pictures. I'm not sure how many but they compared what the PCB looks like with and without LED inputs? The picture was basically a white square with like 3-5 circles showing where the switch would be connected to the PCB, and what it would look like if there were an LED option? Is that what you are referred to Clickey when you say if my board can handle the LEDs at all?

[IvanIvanovich]

PCB with led capability looks like this: [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 33793[/ATTACH]
Someone did something like this on a g80 and wired the led matrix to an arduino for crazy disco light effects so it was similar to that luxeed keyboard. I can't find it at the moment but I'm pretty sure it was on one of the Korean sites.

[ekw808]

[ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 33821[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 33822[/ATTACH] [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] 33823[/ATTACH]

Doesnt look like my board can handle LED's =( what a disappointment. The LED possibilities are only on the top row of keys; esc, the F keys, and only 3 shortcut keys. There goes my hopes of making my own ducky shine.

[ekw808]

Clarification, I have a Ducky 9008G2 I was trying to mod by adding LEDs to my mx browns that could replicate the LEDs on a rubber dome Razer marauder.

[dorkvader]

Didn't think the zippy was aluminium?
---
On topic: You can add LED's to the board, but it won't be a trivial hack. you'd need to replace the PCB or at the very least, drill holes in it for the leads, then attach them all to a microcontroller. Once you've done all that, though it should be pretty easy to mess around with colour/lighting.

[TheProfosist]

Im going to guess right now that the backlighting on that razer keyboard is done the same was as on eclipse which utilized on 5 leds and a plate of acrylic.

[False_Dmitry_II]

What about just buying the marauder and then shoving the relevant internals into a target board? You'd need to make a hole for that wire too, but then you wouldn't have to set up a microcontroller, since razer did all that stuff. Though getting them into place I would imagine to be hard, but then I've seen mods where people ripped out the original PCB entirely, so I would think that it is at least technically possible.

[Clickey]

Modding a rubber dome to accept mechanical switches sounds like more work than it is worth, I don't remember where but there was a discussion on that before.

[False_Dmitry_II]

No, I'm talking the other way. Modding the mech board enough that you can have extra guts in it that do nothing but run the lights.

[Clickey]

Interesting, may be hard to keep them in place without interfering with the key motion, but totally doable.

[Clickey]

Wow yeah that's a lot of work, might as well just pay for a ducky shine.

[ekw808]

Yea, my extent was gonna be to add the LEDs on if the PCB supported them, I am by no means an expert at this, but the addition of the LEDs seemed to be a do-able for someone of my expertise level. Like clickey said, it looks easier to just buy the shine....BUT hopefully ducky makes a year of the dragon edition keyboard next year (imho its impossible to not, I mean common, we're talking about dragon here, do you know how many people are getting married this year so they can have a child born in the year of the dragon?!?! Me neither, but it was significant enough to be in the news.) and hopefully that will have the mod capabilities, if not already have the features that I am looking for. Thanks for the help though.