As an alternative you could try the LED colour changers - little plastic insets that go under the keycap. There is an IC for those atm. Work best with white LEDs.
As an alternative you could try the LED colour changers - little plastic insets that go under the keycap. There is an IC for those atm. Work best with white LEDs.
Right but my LED's are Red, so unless I like purple/orange and other shades of red I don't think those covers will give me a very wide color choice.
It's not hard, but it just takes time to do. Be prepared to spend the afternoon desoldering and resoldering the new LEDs.
Takes me about 20 minutes. I do have a vacuum desoldering gun though..
Takes me about 20 minutes. I do have a vacuum desoldering gun though..
lol thats cheating! Without one of those I cant imagine it taking less than several hours.
I have found it super mega hard to desolder the LEDs. No idea if the problem is from me, form the iron i am using or what but this thing is really pain in the ass from my perspective. Soldering the new once is easy tho but the desoldering is making me want to cry :X
Whatabout those solderless LED holders?I have no real idea what these are but from the name you gave them these seem really interesting.
Like theseShow Image(http://i.imgur.com/0av6MFS.jpg)
Whatabout those solderless LED holders?I have no real idea what these are but from the name you gave them these seem really interesting.
Like theseShow Image(http://i.imgur.com/0av6MFS.jpg)
Whatabout those solderless LED holders?I have no real idea what these are but from the name you gave them these seem really interesting.
Like theseShow Image(http://i.imgur.com/0av6MFS.jpg)
Whatabout those solderless LED holders?I have no real idea what these are but from the name you gave them these seem really interesting.
Like theseShow Image(http://i.imgur.com/0av6MFS.jpg)
looks like machine pin headers to my eyes. or at least thats what I would use.
Whatabout those solderless LED holders?I have no real idea what these are but from the name you gave them these seem really interesting.
Like theseShow Image(http://i.imgur.com/0av6MFS.jpg)
They look like D-sub pins to me.
Thanks guys :)
Pacifist, maybe it's not clear on the pics but that is a plate where you can use tools to open the switches. It came from the_Beast. So yes, you can still open the switch up since the pins are inserted in the bottom half of the switch.
For the LED pins I'll just copy what I said over at DT:
About the LED pins, I originally had the inspiration from an article on KBDMania. I only found the article again after I already did the mod :thumb:
http://www.kbdmania.net/xe/index.php?mid=best_article&document_srl=6246034&6246034_cpage=1
This guy tried different approaches to use these female headers. I also tried different things but figured I didn't want to do the effort of chamfering all of them precisely so I just cut them open completely and used only the pins. I did this for a whole keyboard as well, took me quite some time.
You can find em very cheap on Ebay:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/3Pcs-Single-Row-40Pin-2-54mm-Round-Female-Pin-Header-/140910386490?ssPageName=ADME:L:OC:BE:3160
But be advised, you have to be mentally prepared to do this for a whole keyboard :cool:
You can see how I did it for a Ducky Shine II TKL here:
http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=50784.0
With some cheap soldering irons I couldn't melt some of the lead free solder on a motherboard recently. I had to flow some lead solder onto the area, which allowed me to heat it thoroughly and remove/ replace the component.
You may have similar issues with lead free solder on various boards. I haven't tried a cheap iron on a keyboard yet, but it might go smoothly.
Make sure you have a tip that's the right size.