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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: ac on Sat, 26 December 2015, 07:03:05
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I have a Ducky Shine III TKL w/ MX Blues (White LEDs) with multiple failing white LEDs.
I didn't see this covered on the forum when I did a quick search--so I'm asking here.
I love the Ducky keyboard and the many, many lighting options--but within a month of being new, the LED's began to fail at a rate of about one every 1-3 months. 7 are black now, another dimming.
I wrote Ducky after about month 4 and they responded well and sent me enough replacement LEDs for what had failed at that time plus a couple extra. But the failures continued. Now they exceed the number of bulbs they sent me.
I wrote several more times but they have stopped responding completely. I finally wrote asking just for the
LED specs so I could buy more by myself--but they haven't replied even after repeated requests. There are a million types of LEDs in the world so I need to be confident I'm buying the correct ones, of course.
The Ducky is my first decent keyboard, so I'm a novice. I want to buy a pile of replacement LEDs, but want to check with you experts here first before I buy. I did read the FAQ on LED bulb types.
1) In general, do all backlit mechanical keyboards use the same type of LEDs spec-wise? (Meaning voltage/resistance, etc.)
2) Assuming they do, the FAQ sort of recommends the rectangular LEDs as easy to work with.
- Will the rectangular work with Ducky?
- Has anyone with a Ducky tried and liked the rectangular?
- Ducky uses round, dome shaped LEDs. Does the light dispersion of rectangular works as well or better than the original domed LEDs?
3) Buying. Assuming all is well spec and shapewise, I want to buy as soon as possible. I found lome links to ebay sites people have given in the past threads.
- Do you have current recommendations from where to best to buy?
- Any advice on quanitites and prices? (I'm new to this.)
- Are there differences in quality and longevity of one brand of LED to another? (Ducky sourced LEDs do NOT last long--a real pain.)
4) Finally, I have no experience with the many other keyboard makers out there.
- Is rapid LED burnout common with ALL brands or is this more common with Ducky?
I love Duckys multiple display patterns--but they become useless if all you have is black keys.
Thanks in advance for your advice. [/list]
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LEDs usually don't fail. It's usually because of crappy soldering.
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LEDs usually don't fail. It's usually because of crappy soldering.
That's completely false. A company using thousands of LEDs is bound to have some go bad.
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I have 7 burned out white LEDs out of 104 keys total, so almost 7% of my keyboard is black.
For those who have Ducky or any other brand keyboard, does this seem about the right percent burn out that you have experienced?
This Ducky keyboard hasn't had a new burnout for about 3 months now. It's about a year and half old.
I love the keyboard except occasionally when I need to look down at the keys, the dark keys really throws you off--slows you down--and for the price of the keyboard, I expected better quality than this.
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I have 7 burned out white LEDs out of 104 keys total, so almost 7% of my keyboard is black.
For those who have Ducky or any other brand keyboard, does this seem about the right percent burn out that you have experienced?
This Ducky keyboard hasn't had a new burnout for about 3 months now. It's about a year and half old.
I love the keyboard except occasionally when I need to look down at the keys, the dark keys really throws you off--slows you down--and for the price of the keyboard, I expected better quality than this.
My ducky shine 2 still has all LEDs working it was purchased in April of 2013.
But it does seem like there are reports of board from every year that do have issues.
Maybe ducky has increased production so more boards made would mean more potential issues.
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Is it true that all the replacement LEDs that are mentioned in different threads on the forum can be used to relace LEDs on any backlit keyboard?
Are their LED brands or sources more reliable than others?
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I have 7 burned out white LEDs out of 104 keys total, so almost 7% of my keyboard is black.
For those who have Ducky or any other brand keyboard, does this seem about the right percent burn out that you have experienced?
This Ducky keyboard hasn't had a new burnout for about 3 months now. It's about a year and half old.
I love the keyboard except occasionally when I need to look down at the keys, the dark keys really throws you off--slows you down--and for the price of the keyboard, I expected better quality than this.
My ducky shine 2 still has all LEDs working it was purchased in April of 2013.
But it does seem like there are reports of board from every year that do have issues.
Maybe ducky has increased production so more boards made would mean more potential issues.
My ISO/Nordic white Ducky Shine 2 also still has all white LEDs workin, the k-board is about 4 - 5 years old.
My Ducky Shine 3 ISO/ANSI boards LEDs are also still workin after a year of purchase.
The LEDs are also still workin on my only TKL board, Ducky Shine 3 YYY, 1 years old.
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This is my Ducky 3 TKL in desperate need of quality White LEDs.
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As far as i've seen the voltage ratings for all of the led's on mech keyboards is pretty standard, Max Keyboards sells LED's for replacing them in mech keyboards.
http://www.maxkeyboard.com/max-keyboard-white-3mm-flangeless-replacement-led-for-backlit-mechanical-keyboard-110-pcs.html
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I have 3 Shine 3s and only one LED has died on one after about 2 years, ive replaced it and has been working fine since. I use the 3mm flangeless LEDs from this ebay seller. Only $4.20 for 100 http://www.ebay.com/itm/100pcs-3mm-White-Round-Flangeless-Water-Clear-LED-Leds-Light-Resistors-for-12V-/221268675895
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Also it depends on where you got the keyboard. I have seen several threads around on reddit about some retailers that got a few bad batches of Ducky Shine 3's that had severe LED issues, so you may have been unlucky enough to get one from that batch. Though i'm sure it is just the LED's and not the controller running them. I know NCIX did a recall at one point because all of there stock was affected by the issue.
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I have 2 shine3 and I didn't have any issues with the led's...might be just a bad batch as said before...but I have no issues with any of my ducky boards.
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I hear that Shine 3s with Blue LEDs are more prone to LED failure but it might just be hearsay
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mine are yellow edition with orange leds, fingers crossed!
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FWIW I don't think this is a common problem. I have three Ducky Shine (2 * V1 and 1 * V3) and all LEDs work perfectly.
One keyboard has constant daily use, the other tow have intermittent use.
Red, green and yellow (although they look like orange to me) LEDs.
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Just went over to Reddit's mechanical keyboard forum and found that another Ducky Shine 3 owner had 19 LEDs burn out in about the same time period I had 7 burn out. But he seemed very passive and he just let them happen without contacting Ducky. When he finally had had enough, he realized he should do something, but his warrantee had just finished.
Others had written about lesser numbers of burned out LEDs with Duckys and there had been a recent recall by Ducky (I forget the name of their parent corporation) for bad circuit boards. So anything can happen. Ducky did replace all who asked for replacement.
I'm sure what problems some Ducky's have are not unique to just this brand. Other brands can have issues as well.
Does Ducky have greater LED failure rates than other brands? I did see others brands mentioned with bulb failures with one or two bad bulbs--but I will say that when searching, when Duckys had failures--they really had failures. I think they need to look at how they source their LEDs.
If your Ducky has been fine and you've gone past a year with no failure, it will more likely than not to continue to be solid. My Ducky burnouts started with the first happening after only 2 weeks, and then they continued on every month, then they slowly were spaced out further and further. I had 6 burn out while still under warrantee. I have only 7 failure right now and I'm finally ready to begin to do soldering as I haven't had more dimming and failing now for almost 4 months. I'll buy a batch from ebay soon and give it a go since Ducky failed to send me more as they promised, and now have shut me off and are not responding to any emails at all. (No, I was never nasty in any of the emails.)
I am not happy with the complete silence from Ducky support. I assume they glanced at my emails from the past and suddently realized that I'm months past warrantee now--so technically it's not their problem--even though I informed them long before the warrantee was up. When my keyboard was still very new, they paid attention and made an effort to send me a few replacement bulbs--but just not enough bulbs to cover the burnout rate.
With the spaced out timing of the many bulb burnouts, had I chosen to ship it back to my supplier under warrantee to have each newly failed bulb repaired, I would have paid more in total shipping than for the entire cost of the keyboard new. An expensive keyboard indeed.
My guess is that Ducky buys their bulbs like anyone else--from ebay or one of the manufacturers in China--getting the rock bottom lowest price possible--not necessarily looking for reputible suppliers--price comes first. It's a business. So sometimes they get good quality--sometimes not. So if you get the keyboard with lots of failures, well, that's the luck of the draw. Other keyboard makers might be a little more choosy or other criteria for choosing who they buy from. Just my thoughts.
So, just great. Reading Reddit was really useful because I actually feel LUCKY now after reading the comments by the poor guy who had 19 LEDs fail in his Ducky over about the same length of time mine did. Several recommended to him to just buy new "opaque" keycaps and forget about the lights altogether--turn them off--as burned out lights are distracting. I am considering that--but I do like the lights. Frankly, the great lighting options are the only REAL reason to buy Ducky over another brands. No one comes close to their programmed lighting options.
But if you are not interested in LEDs? Then there are better options than Ducky, IMO.
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I have gotten into the habit of turning off the LED's on all my backlit keyboards when I am done just to be safe.
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Just a final update. I am out of country but received word that LED replacement bulbs from Ducky actually have arrived!
It's been almost 6 months since I first requested replacement bulbs from them. After starting this thread, I wrote Ducky one last time but I didn't ask them to send more bulbs. I'd really given up hope for that. Instead, I asked what the LED specs were so that I could buy identical replacements from eBay myself. They wrote back saying they would not reveal the bulb specs but that they would again send me replacement bulbs.
I figured that like before, nothing would happen so I prepared to just buy whatever bulbs were recommended elsewhere on this forum. I felt sure that if they didn't arrive twice before (Were they even really mailed?), that I wouldn't see anything the third time either. But now they did come for real.
I wasn't told yet how many bulbs were sent, but I'm happy for anything right now.
This has been an exercise in patience to be sure--but glad to know that Ducky does eventually follow up.
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FWIW, my Shine 3 TKL looks like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/U9ckv4Y.jpg?2)
Tilde and 5 appear to be fading, F1, E, C, G and LCtrl are all out. I've had it since late 2013, but I stopped using it after about a year when I discovered MX Greens. Now that I brought it out to get this potato picture, I do miss the magenta glow :(
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I'm glad they finally sent you (hopefully fully functioning) leds. I've had my Ducky Shine 4 since April of last year, and all leds are as bright as the day I got them, for all intents and purposes. I did hear about some Ducky Shine 3 bad batches, and mechanicalkeyboards.com is even selling one of these whole bad batches currently with a set of PBTs (sold as a 'non-backlit'). They all have red leds and white cases.
https://mechanicalkeyboards.com/shop/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1490
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I wish I knew if the failure rates for white LEDs is similar to the various colored LEDs. I assume white must take more energy to blend three colors and maybe the bulbs are under greater stress. (Just guessing.)
I was just told that they sent me a pretty large number of LEDs, far more than have burned out so far, so hopefully, I won't need to look elsewhere. Thanks Ducky.
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To avoid all that problem, I SIP mod all my LEDs. Even the lock lights. It's a huge PITA at first, but after that you can just swap in any LED you like of the same voltage every time. Because there are always LEDs that refuse to work, refuse to light up to full brightness, or die pretty fast.
I have Model F ATs with all their lock lights still working. I have also soldered brand new LEDs into my Deck Legend that weren't working to begin with. This has taught me to always use the led tester on my multimeter. Whoever was making LEDs 30 years ago, made more reliable LEDs than the cheap Chinese manufacturers now.