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geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: jeroentbt on Mon, 09 February 2015, 16:39:17

Title: SA keycap sticky because of LED (Cherry MX)
Post by: jeroentbt on Mon, 09 February 2015, 16:39:17

Hey,

I'm in the process of building my very first mechanical keyboard and I find that the SA caps from SP are sticky on those keys that have a led on the switch.
How should I manage this best? Mod the led or the cap?

Any visual examples anyone know of?

Cheers,
Jeroen

Title: Re: SA keycap sticky because of LED (Cherry MX)
Post by: jeroentbt on Tue, 10 February 2015, 14:40:45

I went ahead and ground the leds. No sense in ruining perfectly good keycaps :)

Title: Re: SA keycap sticky because of LED (Cherry MX)
Post by: Asininity on Tue, 10 February 2015, 15:04:12

Quote from: jeroentbt on Tue, 10 February 2015, 14:40:45

I went ahead and ground the leds. No sense in ruining perfectly good keycaps :)

How does grinding down the LED affect the lighting?

Title: Re: SA keycap sticky because of LED (Cherry MX)
Post by: Oobly on Fri, 13 February 2015, 03:44:34

Quote from: jeroentbt on Tue, 10 February 2015, 14:40:45

I went ahead and ground the leds. No sense in ruining perfectly good keycaps :)

Ah, Penumbra.. My favourite set.

Can't see too clearly from the picture, but it looks like the LED's could be sitting too high because they are the wrong type (have a lip at the bottom). SA caps fit fine on my board with the "without flange" type of 3mm LEDs.

The lighting will not be affected much by grinding. The "lens" of the LED is meant to focus the light a bit more narrowly from the top of the LED, so without it it'll spread more, but only noticable with really clear backlit keycaps.