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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: sigi on Wed, 12 September 2012, 20:56:44
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Hi
Im deciding to buy a mechanical keyboard, which of these units did u recomend more:
Tesoro Durandal Ultimate G1NL
Gigabyte Aivia Osmium
Somebody knows if it is posible for the end user to change the leds?
what type of leds that keyboards use 5mm or 3mm???
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Played with Osmium and found the build quality to be superb. The keycaps may not be silky smooth as Race/Pure but the coating looks durable. People who had popped open the keyboard for modding says it has great PCB and internals. The 4 extra keycaps and the 2 backlit scroll wheels are great additions. It is only available in red switch. I can personally recommend it.
Not sure about Durandal, but people also have good words to speak about it... is it brown switch only?
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thanks for the reply...
and yes only brown as far as Amazon is the only place that u can see it...
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Then it very much depends on your switch preference... (brown or red)
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LEDs under switches are 3mm and flat top LEDs are generally recommended for clearance. As long as your voltages are close enough you should be able to swap LEDs without burning them out.
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Welcome to Geekhack!
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Again, I highly recommend NOT going backlit, because color matching is nearly impossible. And leds are among the least durable components on any keyboard.
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Also, on many backlit keyboards, the keys are made by having a coating applied and then etched away. Over time, additional coating gets worn off, creating very ugly keys.
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Also, on many backlit keyboards, the keys are made by having a coating applied and then etched away. Over time, additional coating gets worn off, creating very ugly keys.
yup, NO way to find replacement keys. impossible.... they just don't bother making these. Best you can do is go with those POM jelly keys for good light diffusion, but i mean that's only if you're ok with rainbow barf.
And then there's the Clear keys, but that's $80 for acrylic, and we're not really sure if those keys would yellow over time. because some acrylic yellows fast, and some slowly. It's kind of a risk.
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I wouldn't go with either of those. The Tesoro is oem by iOne, who have awful assembly, and 4/5 post I have seen about the Osmium were discussing rma... not good sign.
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If you must have backlite, the only choice is ducky dragon.
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If you must have backlite, the only choice is ducky dragon.
Personally, if I were going for a backlit keyboard, I'd get a Deck. PBT caps and LEDs rated for 200,000 hours.
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Personally, if I were going for a backlit keyboard, I'd get a Deck. PBT caps and LEDs rated for 200,000 hours.
Deck's caps are doubleshot ABS...
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According to their site, "Keycaps and housings are made from a polycarbonate plastic (PBT) with the exception of the spacebars which are made from ABS plastic."
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You mean RealForce?
Deck is this: http://deckkeyboards.com/ (http://deckkeyboards.com/) - I have just gone through the page and cannot find that part.
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Click on Deck's F.A.Q. (http://www.deckkeyboards.com/faq.php?osCsid=a9b4dd6fe903bf56370ad68f27b256ed), then go down to #31.
Mechanicalkeyboards.com also lists them as having PBT caps.
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If you must have backlite, the only choice is ducky dragon.
Personally, if I were going for a backlit keyboard, I'd get a Deck. PBT caps and LEDs rated for 200,000 hours.
They're all rated for xxxxxxxx thousand hours.
But if it has even 0.001% failure rate, and then you run 2 billion of these through the pipe.. multiplied by 87 per your keyboard,
Chance of failure is approximately SUPER HIGH.
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Then you get into the magic voodoo where they run the LED at lower than rated current/voltage and use stupid math to claim better longevity. It's technically true, but without testing there's no way to know how much longer.
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Then you get into the magic voodoo where they run the LED at lower than rated current/voltage and use stupid math to claim better longevity. It's technically true, but without testing there's no way to know how much longer.
Yup all that ****, Made up fluff.
I only trust Japanese or German manufacturers when it comes to high failure rate items. they have a solid grasp of "Pride In One's Work"
The Chinese, not so much..
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But if the guy has already made up his mind to get a backlit board no matter what, he might as well get one that's closer to being acceptable-- to me, that means the Deck. Anything else will be keycap blob city in a few months to a few years, depending on usage habits.
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But if the guy has already made up his mind to get a backlit board no matter what, he might as well get one that's closer to being acceptable-- to me, that means the Deck. Anything else will be keycap blob city in a few months to a few years, depending on usage habits.
How sure are we that the Deck keys are more durable. They may be pbt, but still painted no?
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But if the guy has already made up his mind to get a backlit board no matter what, he might as well get one that's closer to being acceptable-- to me, that means the Deck. Anything else will be keycap blob city in a few months to a few years, depending on usage habits.
How sure are we that the Deck keys are more durable. They may be pbt, but still painted no?
No, they are not painted.
From Deck's FAQ:
Characters can't chip off the key caps or wear down because we use a sublimated negative printing process which drives the ink into the plastic keycaps at 525°F. This means permanent printing from the inside out, not just on the top, and gives the letters a permanent place inside the plastic.
Mind you, for myself, I wouldn't buy a backlit board at all. But as I said, if I had to pick one to recommend...
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Click on Deck's F.A.Q. (http://www.deckkeyboards.com/faq.php?osCsid=a9b4dd6fe903bf56370ad68f27b256ed), then go down to #31.
Mechanicalkeyboards.com also lists them as having PBT caps.
Wow, first time I know about this. Thanks!
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where can I find articles or something related to Gigabyte Aivia Osmium MODs?
as far as I see on the images that u can get about the Aivia it has 3mm normal leds (round top)...
(http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/Aivia_Osmium/images/macro_keys.jpg)
If it is true, it will be a very good notice because they are available even locally in my country or very easy to buy in 10 per $1 or $2 online...
I only hope that get in the solder points of each led will be easy and get the mod done...
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25pcs 3mm Round Super Bright White LED Light Lamp ( 190719198722 )
30pcs 3mm Round Super Bright Blue LED Light Lamp ( 190719199690 )
30pcs 3mm Round Super Bright Green LED Light Lamp ( 190719203748 )
40pcs 3mm Round Super Bright Yellow LED Light Lamp ( 190719205424 )
15pcs 3mm Round Ultra Bright Pink LED Lamp ( 190719621522 )
25pcs 5mm Round Ultra Bright Orange LED Lamp ( 190719724280 )
15pcs 3mm Round Ultra Bright Purple LED Lamp ( 190728647629 )
all of these for $6.97 on ebay...
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Need to trim the plastic shoulder around the bottom to get it seated in the switch housing, but yeah if the original has domes, no reason you can't continue with that. Of course flat-tops are readily available on ebay for cheap. It's the voltage you need to be worried about. Original is blue, so you're probably looking for ~3.2v LEDs to replace with.
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yes the correct procedure maybe involves an RMS mesurement of the voltage aplied to the blue leds and maybe aditional resistors for the red, yellow, pink and purple...
I really dont think that anyone will be damaged with the normal voltage in the keyboard but it is more to obtain the same luminosity on all colors and not reduce the life spam of the leds...
Even if the high voltage aplied to the blue leds is more than 3v it will be a good idea to limit it...