IDEA: Custom XArmor with ghetto red switches and red LED's

[turbocharged]

So I have been thinking about a possible project since Deck Legend Fire keyboards are never in stock and I really love linear switches and red backlighting.

I was thinking of buying the XArmor board ($105 after $25 promo code), then buying these WYSE keyboards with MX Blacks and salvaging the switches ($30 shipped). Then taking the springs from the groupbuy and doing the transplant to have some ghetto reds ($15). Then ordering 104 red led's from Digikey to replace the blue led's on the X-Armor. ($35 shipped)

So for $185 and a good amount of soldering, I could make a custom red backlit XArmor U9BL with Cherry Red switches. And, in the end, I would have 104 spare MX Black switches and 104 spare MX Blue switches. What do you guys think?

EDIT: After doing some more research I think it is going to be harder than initially thought to go from blue to red LED's because of the large voltage difference. I wonder what the specs of the blue leds are that they use?

[taswyn]

It's similar to something I've thought about doing with tg3 boards, but... ugh, that's a LOT of soldering. At least to someone who hasn't touched a soldering iron in years and is remembering how she wasn't exactly a natural with it either (but then again at the time I think I was basically given an iron and some solder and treated as if I should know what I was doing and basically treated as if any questions weren't worth being answered, since I was obviously going to be a lost cause anyway, I don't think I ever even realized what flux was for at the time). Maybe you're more comfortable with doing that much.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's: Desolder switch's two points, LED's two points, [rectifier diode?] on one board, per switch (4-6 connections x number of switches). Desolder switch's two points on donor board. Pop apart switch to remove stem, replace spring. Re-solder switches' two points, LED's two points, [rectifier diode?] on finished board, clip LED leads.

If you have the time and inclination, I would say go for it, but at the same time I almost think that you might want to consider whether there's anything else in terms of modding you want to do if you're going to go that far (maybe that's just me though)? You *are* changing the switches to reds basically, so that is a plus over buying a Legend Fire, but if it weren't for that I'd say that I thought I had seen them being carried somewhere recently for a slight premium over Deck's direct price. Maybe it wasn't a Fire though.

[msiegel]

a LOT of soldering

it'd be heroic. The Red Dragon

[taswyn]

Heroic Red Dragon of doom imo

[msiegel]

of DOOOOM

where's panda-R? XD

[taswyn]

Needs more Doom Song (should embed a speaker in it!)

[turbocharged]

It's similar to something I've thought about doing with tg3 boards, but... ugh, that's a LOT of soldering. At least to someone who hasn't touched a soldering iron in years and is remembering how she wasn't exactly a natural with it either (but then again at the time I think I was basically given an iron and some solder and treated as if I should know what I was doing and basically treated as if any questions weren't worth being answered, since I was obviously going to be a lost cause anyway, I don't think I ever even realized what flux was for at the time). Maybe you're more comfortable with doing that much.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's: Desolder switch's two points, LED's two points, [rectifier diode?] on one board, per switch (4-6 connections x number of switches). Desolder switch's two points on donor board. Pop apart switch to remove stem, replace spring. Re-solder switches' two points, LED's two points, [rectifier diode?] on finished board, clip LED leads.

If you have the time and inclination, I would say go for it, but at the same time I almost think that you might want to consider whether there's anything else in terms of modding you want to do if you're going to go that far (maybe that's just me though)? You *are* changing the switches to reds basically, so that is a plus over buying a Legend Fire, but if it weren't for that I'd say that I thought I had seen them being carried somewhere recently for a slight premium over Deck's direct price. Maybe it wasn't a Fire though.

Yes, I am aware that it is A LOT of soldering...but that's what a project is for. The LED voltage is the biggest issue in my head.

As for the source with the in stock Legend Fire, they are here at DataCal and cost $30 over MSRP. Not sure if it is worth that much more or if a cool project would be better/more entertaining.

[taswyn]

I think it comes down to how much you want the cherry red-alike stems, personally. Since once you start looking at replacing the stems on a deck, it's practically the same project, isn't it, in terms of work? You skip the step of desoldering from a donor board too, but... So for a red-alike backlit keyboard, in that perspective, it's not all so terrible if reds (with backlighting) are what you want *that* much =)

I'd still say that if it were ~me~ I would carefully consider if there were any other mods I'd *also* be interested in doing while doing that much soldering anyway. But over-ambitious goals (it's not really feature creep if you're still in the scoping phase! It's just plain feature bloat, eww =X ) are the death of many of my personal projects, so =P

[turbocharged]

I think it comes down to how much you want the cherry red-alike stems, personally. Since once you start looking at replacing the stems on a deck, it's practically the same project, isn't it, in terms of work? You skip the step of desoldering from a donor board too, but... So for a red-alike backlit keyboard, in that perspective, it's not all so terrible if reds (with backlighting) are what you want *that* much =)

I'd still say that if it were ~me~ I would carefully consider if there were any other mods I'd *also* be interested in doing while doing that much soldering anyway. But over-ambitious goals (it's not really feature creep if you're still in the scoping phase! It's just plain feature bloat, eww =X ) are the death of many of my personal projects, so =P

Well the original plan is to put the first set of springs in my MX11900 to make sure I like the MX Red feel. It's just PCB mount, so swapping springs is easy. IF I really like the red, then I would be inclined to do it to the Deck that I was going to get. That is when I had they idea...if I'm going to all that work on the Deck, why not just get the board that is readily available and mod the hell out of it.

I would still prefer the Deck board over the XArmor...but it would be a fun project if the LED swap is possible. I just really don't want blue led's.

[taswyn]

You know, you could always do some mix of colors, too. I know reds are usually cheaper than most other colors, but it wouldn't be too bad to put some whites in just the WASD keys, and maybe orange (often comparably priced to red I think) across the F-keys or such, maybe the arrow/nav keys too. Not the colors I would choose for me, but hopefully a reasonable example ^^

[sixty]

If you decide to go on with this project, I would love to take the desoldered plate+pcb from the WYSE board from you when you are done.

Hard to find a US layout one here in Germany, so I could just swap pcb+plate with the Euro one I have. Shipping should be somewhat cheap.

Two projects - two people happy from one item!

[Soarer]

$35 for 104 red LEDs? I got 50 off ebay for £3! Good ones too, they claim to be 8000mcd which is very bright... of course you don't want bright for this, but if you use larger resistors it means it takes less current to drive them.

Key to this seems to be working out how it drives the LEDs - if it has a resistor next to each switch then changing from blue to red will be simple, just change all the resistors to match the red LED.

[turbocharged]

Yeah, I understand how LED's work and that is why the project scares me...installing 104 new switches and LED's is daunting enough....add 104 resistors into the mix and it gets crazy...unless you are just replacing existing resistors with new resistors of greater value.

When looking at the Deck Legend schematic (can only imagine the XArmor is similar) I can find 64 resistors that are in there specifically for the red LED's (R4-R11,R14,R15,R26 on the first schematic, then R3A through R3A52. So there is 1 resistor per 2 switches and 11 more on the second board.

So I guess the question is...which I can't answer because I don't have a torn down XArmor in front of me ...would the wiring be similar to the Deck wiring and would the resistors just be standard axial resistors in between the pcb and plate?

[msiegel]

there has to be an easier way...

if the led power supply could be boosted to 9V and regulated, maybe they could be wired in series of 5 without any resistors.

edit: someone around here must have hooked up a string of leds to a boost converter before!

/not me!

[turbocharged]

Is the board not just powered by the 5V usb and that distributed through the circuit?

[turbocharged]

Wow, Deck publishes schematics.  Geek heaven!

That is one of the reasons I want a Deck so bad. The company, while isn't great at growing their business it seems, is awesome because they welcome and encourage modifications. They publish their schematics, tell you how to perform some modifications, and will not void your warranty for performing modifications. Just browse their forums and even the admins show off their mods (they are a bit dated though).

[msiegel]

Is the board not just powered by the 5V usb and that distributed through the circuit?

right.

and then, it looks like pairs of red leds share a 100 ohm resistor. this drops the 5V down to 3.6V (1.8V per led), driving each led at 15mA; a nice comfortable amount of power

according to the schematic, they use the same pcb for all colors of leds, just replacing the leds and using appropriate resistors (which are wired differently for the different led colors).

[woody]

15 mA is too bright perhaps.

[msiegel]

15 mA is too bright perhaps.

led technology just keeps advancing... they're getting brighter and more efficient every year

[woody]

15 mA was quite much even when they weren't that advanced.

[Soarer]

The red LEDs I just bought are quite bright (for an indicator light) with a 10k resistor - that's a mere 0.3mA! At 20mA they'd make a good torch :-D

Don't forget the dimmer circuit in those boards - I don't know exactly what range of voltage that'll supply, but at a guess it goes between about 3V and 4.5V. (In that Deck schematic it's the two transistors etc top-right of page 1).

[turbocharged]

The red LEDs I just bought are quite bright (for an indicator light) with a 10k resistor - that's a mere 0.3mA! At 20mA they'd make a good torch :-D

Don't forget the dimmer circuit in those boards - I don't know exactly what range of voltage that'll supply, but at a guess it goes between about 3V and 4.5V. (In that Deck schematic it's the two transistors etc top-right of page 1).

That is what I just came here to ask about...the dimmer circuit. What if you installed the red led's into the existing circuit and just made sure you stayed on one of the lower brightness settings? Sure you wouldn't have the range of brightness settings anymore, but I run my TG3 red led's at full brightness all the time anyway.

Also, I went ahead and bought those Wyse boards on ebay. Offered him $7.50 for them and he took it. Figured all the spare black switches made it worth it since I needed a few anyway.

[msiegel]

measure the voltage at the different brightness settings

+1, a capital idea

[turbocharged]

I understand how LED's work and know that I can't put too much voltage to a red led. Led's are quite easy and I have worked with them before. The hard part is knowing what is going on with the keyboard side of the project. I could figure it out for a Deck board since I have the schematic, but the XArmor is a different story.

The problem I have is that I do not have an XArmor board and do not want one unless I know this mod will work. So it's kind of hard for me to measure voltage on something that I do not have in my possession. My friend has one, but I know for a fact that he is not going to let me open it up.

I guess I could buy one and if it looks like it isn't going to work, sell it. I wouldn't lose much, if any, money since I would be getting it with a discount. But that is still a gamble.

[runeazn]

wait for brown ub9l
and get black springs of that group buy
and then you have ghetto red

[Soarer]

It's a pretty safe bet that it will be similar enough to mod, I reckon. Some circuitry to provide a dimming function, which might be like the deck, or could be PWM - it doesn't really matter, since if you work things out for full brightness, the dimming will 'just work' TM.

So you only need to worry about the resistor per switch (or pair of switches). If they're surface mount, then choose your LEDs carefully to try and roughly match the brightness. Otherwise, if it were me, I'd just change the resistors having picked a nice LED.

BTW, with LEDs it's all about the current, not the voltage ;-)

[turbocharged]

Well it seems like this project isn't going to go anywhere after all (as interesting to me as it is). I just ordered my Deck Legend Fire and don't have the need to mod an XArmor to be basically the same thing.

Although, when/if XArmor releases a MX brown version, I will be all over it.

[msiegel]

yay! but aww

[Artillery]

Congrats on the Deck.  I've had mine since August and its a really nice board, though its not sculpted.  The back lighting is really well done.  Only annoying thing is converting from PS/2 to USB and vice versa, but thats not an every day thing.  Desolder\solder a 100 Ohm resistor and switch the cable around to change between the two.

[turbocharged]

Congrats on the Deck.  I've had mine since August and its a really nice board, though its not sculpted.  The back lighting is really well done.  Only annoying thing is converting from PS/2 to USB and vice versa, but thats not an every day thing.  Desolder\solder a 100 Ohm resistor and switch the cable around to change between the two.

Thanks, I probably won't be switching between the two, but that does raise a question. Did your keyboard come with both  PS/2 and USB cables?

[Artillery]

The Cable on the Deck Legend's is PS/2 on one end and USB on the other.  To switch modes you open the keyboard, switch which end of the cable is plugged in and remove a resistor for USB or add it back for PS/2.

[Artillery]

I could do one, but the only other keyboards I will be able to compare it to are the Das and the Black Widow in a store.

I'll try to get one up today, any tips for taking pictures?  I just have a 8.2MP Finepix for pictures, what find of background to use, flash or not, etc?

[turbocharged]

I'm going to be reviewing it once it arrives.

The idea that the USB to PS/2 swap not being "user friendly" may be true, but I don't know of another company that is even remotely as "mod friendly" as Deck, which in my opinion makes them vastly superior to a user like me. And at least you can switch between the USB and PS/2 without the use of an adapter, even if it does take a bit more work.