Shine 3 LED Problems

[Smyte]

Hi there, I'm new here as a user but have browsed through some threads and reviews in the forums before - especially when making my decision on which mechanical keyboard to buy.

I recently bought a Green Led Brown MX Ducky Shine 3 a few months back and it's been giving me problems from day 1(Which is extremely disappointing considering the reviews mentioning superb build quality). When it arrived it was fine but after usage for some time(hour or so), a couple of the LED lights dimmed out and by 2 hours or so, they went totally off. This continued for the next few days as more and more of the LED's went out in a similar fashion.

Deciding against going through the long process of claiming the ducky warranty, I contacted the retailer which I bought it from and they asked me to ship it back to them - which I did. They replaced the keyboard and gave me a new one. Within a few days, I encountered the exact same problem with the new one. Since then, I've shipped the keyboard back for a replacement no less than 3 times and every single time they shipped it back, the same problem started occuring. This has costed me heavily, almost enough to buy half a ducky shine 3.

I surfed to find out if people had similar problems and apparently Ducky had a bad batch of keyboard released a few months ago as well.

Do you think you guys could give me advice on what to do? Since I'm an engineer by profession, I've been tempted to break the warranty seal and open the keyboard myself to see what's wrong with the LEDs since from what I know, LEDs don't just 'break' so easily, which leads me to believe that the problem is something along the lines of insufficient solder or bad soldering.

What do you guys think? Have you guys opened up your Shine 3's and seen if the connections inside are accessible or if there may be any other factor causing this problem.

[dantan]

Never heard of such a thing, but it sounds terrible. How come more people are not complaining about their Ducky shines?

[Smyte]

That's what i'm wondering. There have been some complaints about a batch of ducky shine 3 with red leds being recalled sometime in april. Most probably the shops and retailers just reimbursed the customers or replaced the keyboards with the new batch. It's possible the particular shop I bought from was unaware of the recall, or just didn't care.

That being said, I wish to know what you guys think is the best course of action right now. Would opening the keyboard to look while the warranty is still active be a wise decision? Or should i try to contact ducky directly ( which will of course include expensive overseas shipping costs).

[Grendel]

I would suggest to talk to Ducky directly, explaining the whole ordeal and see what they will do for you before voiding the warranty.

[Oobly]

Disclaimer: I void warranties as soon as I've determined the product works as it should when it arrives, so take this from that perspective.

Talk to Ducky first. Also check your USB 5v signal for noise, etc. A bad PSU can do all kinds of nasty stuff.

If that doesn't produce a solution I'd open her up and replace all the LED's. You could also take the time to check the signals through the LED's in both directions to see if they're being fed something bad. If they're getting too much reverse current or the forward current is over spec, you can check further. If they're getting good power, the LED's themselves are probably from a bad batch and replacements should last.

[Smyte]

Thanks for the input and suggestions. Yes, I was worried my PSU might've been sending surges to my USB3.0 ports so after receiving the repaired/replaced board for the 3rd time, I used it solely on my Dell Inspiron Laptop which only has USB 2.0. Barely 2 days in and the same problem occurred. I'll try contacting Ducky but after reading the warranty, chances are that they'll just refer me back to the reseller.

[C5Allroad]

Question, when did they release the bad batch?
Mine has been amazing, but, I guess you can just open it up and resolder 

[rowdy]

I have three Ducky Shines of different vintages and different LEDs.  No problems with LEDs at all!

Maybe the USB port is not providing enough power?  Can you try something between the computer and the keyboard, like a reasonably good powered USB hub?

[Smyte]

Sometime in April or May this year. Someone complained about a similar problem in this very forum, here's the link I saw him post on his thread: http://forums.ncix.com/forums/topic.php?id=2665565

Even though I didn't get the keyboard from NCIX, it's possible that the entire batch to different resellers was problematic.

The problem isn't only affecting one or two keys. It began with that but slowly progressed as another 1-2 keys would dim out every few days before giving out completely. In total around 12 keys have gone out now on my most current ducky. One similarity I must note is it kind of 'spreads' since the keys which have defective LEDs are all close to each other.

First my numpad '-' key and Enter key went out, then some days later the right shift and '*' num pad key started to dim and go out, followed by del key and num pad 9, continuing with adjacent or nearby keys every time.

[Toxitron]

I've always enjoyed browsing geekhack but I never actually made an account until now... looks like it's time to finally chime in.

I've been experiencing a very similar issue;
I got a Ducky shine 3 in late December of 2013 and it worked perfectly for it's first 6 months. Since then the D, M, F7 and a few moments ago, right control key LED's have stopped working. Other than it entering demo mode on one occasion when trying different usb ports/cables, I've had no other issues with it.

As I don't currently have a working backup keyboard I haven't returned this one but the problem does seem to be getting worse with a new led dying every month or so. After seeing this is a recurring problem with the shine 3 I'm tentative of getting a new one, maybe it'll be easier to wait for the shine 4.

In case it's relevant;
The keyboard is a DK-9087 shine 3 with Cherry MX Red's and blue led lighting in UK/ISO layout. I use a Belkin F9M823uk2M surge protector, Corsair AX1200i PSU, Asus Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard and the keyboard is plugged directly into one of the motherboard's usb 3.0 ports.

[Smyte]

Yea, it's frustrating when the keyboard is supposed to last for years(which is one of the selling points of a mech) but won't even last a fraction of the warranty period.

[rowdy]

I've always enjoyed browsing geekhack but I never actually made an account until now... looks like it's time to finally chime in.

I've been experiencing a very similar issue;
I got a Ducky shine 3 in late December of 2013 and it worked perfectly for it's first 6 months. Since then the D, M, F7 and a few moments ago, right control key LED's have stopped working. Other than it entering demo mode on one occasion when trying different usb ports/cables, I've had no other issues with it.

As I don't currently have a working backup keyboard I haven't returned this one but the problem does seem to be getting worse with a new led dying every month or so. After seeing this is a recurring problem with the shine 3 I'm tentative of getting a new one, maybe it'll be easier to wait for the shine 4.

In case it's relevant;
The keyboard is a DK-9087 shine 3 with Cherry MX Red's and blue led lighting in UK/ISO layout. I use a Belkin F9M823uk2M surge protector, Corsair AX1200i PSU, Asus Rampage IV Extreme Motherboard and the keyboard is plugged directly into one of the motherboard's usb 3.0 ports.

Welcome to Geekhack!

Of my three Ducky Shines, one doesn't get much use at all, the second has heavy use on a daily basis (with the LEDs on) and the third I am using now, with LEDs on.

Not a single problem - all LEDs work perfectly.

I'm guessing there was a bad batch of these out there somewhere, like the bad batch of QFR that all had the same problem a while ago.

[Oobly]

The recall was for boards with red LED's only.

It does sound like bad LED's or incorrect value resistors since the LED's are arranged in groups with a single resistor for a group on these Ducky's. So if they are operating close to their failure point, if one LED dies, the rest see higher current and will start to fail progressively until the whole group are dead.

IMHO, replacing all the LED's and using resistors with an appropriate value will solve the problem. It could also be a faulty driver chip pushing out a bad PWM signal to them, but that's not so easy to diagnose or fix, unless you have an oscilloscope.