geekhack
geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: zpcomstock17 on Sun, 22 January 2017, 16:15:54
-
I'm looking for good advice on building a DIY RGB Keyboard, I have a budget around 150-200 bucks and hope that's enough.
The thing is... I have no idea where to start. Phantom or Winkeyless PCB? Which type of diodes do I pick? What kind of resistors? Do I need a RGB controller and Keyboard controller, are they independent or they come in one single controller? PCB or Plate mounted switches, does the type matter?
I would appreciate any kind of help any of you have to offer, especially if you're typing from the same keyboard you're building from scratch.
-
I recommend that you find a cheap(er) existing keyboard and use it for at least a couple of days to see how you really feel about it, then take it apart and put it back together for practice.
Before investing the time, money, and effort into a custom, you need to feel confident that you have selected the components that you like best, and that your skills are honed.
-
I don't think anyone here has built a keyboard with RGB backlighting as a hobbyist project, but I might be mistaken. Backlighting limits your options to which kinds of keycaps you could use. The highest-quality keycaps do not often have transparent legends that could be backlit.
I know some have gone professional and designed RGB-backlit keyboards though.
Input.club (https://input.club/) has released previous keyboards as DIY kits and is about to release their K-type some time this year. The K-type will have a regular tenkeyless ANSI layout and RGB backlighting, and the firmware is open source so that you could tinker a lot with it. I anticipate that it could be out of your budget, however.