Why I dislike full RGB backlighting

[zslane]

Because there is always the chance that the LED circuity will be borked and some LEDs will be permenantly turned on.

For instance, I have a brand new IKBC MF108, the one with the heavy CNC aluminum case. It has all these silly LED modes, which I want to simply turn off. When I press FN+O to turn off all LED lighting, I still have a blue LED on under the F7, F8, F9, Caps Lock, and the spacebar. Also, the three LEDs meant to indicate which locks are on (Caps, Num, and Scroll) are always illuminated no matter what. Even using the FN+R (for five seconds) to "reset" the board to factory defaults leave it in this state.

Yes, you can always say I ended up with a bad keyboard, but when LED backlighting doesn't work right, its effect is extremely irritating. I bought this board for the aluminum case and the 108-key layout, not the LED backlighting. I figured I could just turn off the LEDs and not have to even deal with them. The universe is laughing at me right now.

RGB backlighting is a plague on mankind...

[chyros]

Even better is fake RGB backlighting .

[falkentyne]

They used a different firmware on the MF108?  On the regular F108, FN+F5 (one of the modes) turns off all the backlighting.  The status keys are on or off and can't be permanently disabled.

[kawasaki161]

That would apply to every kind of backlighting though. Wait, that would apply to anything that has some sort of circuitry in it, any circuitry can get borked and as a result stops working correctly, oh noes.

Solution Nr.1: Return broken stuff
Solution Nr.2: Stop using electronics

Your choice


PS: I know you're just venting . But please, blame the product, not the concept

[tp4tissue]

Hahahahhaaha


Basically what's happening is,  people are investing alot for their cnc Cases.


But they don't know jack about electronics, so they just stuff some cheapo cost cut pcb in there with ghetto ics..

yay, it's a different color, hurray, done..  led burns out.. hahahahaha


There is such a thing as premium pcbs...

[ComandaPanda]

Agreed, i cant stand rgb leds and in addition of higher costs the colors always look washed out compared to there single color counterpart, best quality multi color i would say is the Ducky Mini / Shine 4.

[zslane]

Believe me, I wouldn't mind at all if the RGB lighting was "broken", but if it's going to be broken, at least be broken in a way that leaves them off rather than in some random state. My gripe isn't that sh*t breaks, but that when RGB lighting in particular breaks, it breaks in the most annoying way possible.

[Leslieann]

Being permanently on is an unlikely scenario (these are not the same as your monitor), usually it would be the result of a short, which can easily be fixed with a razor or small file, but then you have one light that doesn't work at all. 

A more likely scenario will be one light not properly changing color, you want purple and get bright blue or red. Let's also not forget, these led's have at least 3 times the failure rate as a normal led.


For as often as I can/do take advantage of back lighting... Meh, I don't need it.
The keycap quality almost always sucks, the lights burn out, it's more complicated, and most backlit keyboards are using it as a selling point over more expensive boards (in other words, they're cheap). My Filco MJ2 will probably still be functioning 20 years from now (provided I don't do anything stupid to it), the same can't be said for some of these other boards, and certainly not for the backlighting on them.

[zslane]

Well, I don't know specifically what is going on electronically with this IKBC, but what I do know is that six of the blue LEDs are always illuminated no matter what. I don't have the tools required to either diagnose the problem nor to fix it. I don't even have the tool necessary to unscrew the case apart (they are like really small hex screws). I would rather just return it for a refund, to be honest.