Wireless Keyboard Lighting?

[crazzyyredneck]

So I Bought A Logitech MX3000 Keyboard And Mouse...I LOVE THEM! lol. Only Thing I Dont Like But Dont Really Mind Is That The Keys Dont Light Up Unlike The Saitek One. The Reason I Decided To Get This Is Because It Is Wireless. But Could That Be Changed? Can I Run EL Wire Through Out The Board? Or Even Place LED's In Here Somewhere? I Don't Think That There Is Enough Room For Cathodes. But Yeah Any Suggestions? I'm Not To Concerned About Battery Life Because I Do Have Rechargable Battery's But I Dont Want To Have To Replace Them Every 2 Days lol.

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Thats The Keyboard... If I Do Decide To Buy EL Wireing, How Does It Work? I Can Do LED's But I Kinda Want To Do Something Other Than That lol.

[Bucko]

You could power the LED's by a usb cord running it and use the 5V power.

[crazzyyredneck]

True And I Did Think Of That Actually. But Been Wanting To Try Out EL Wiring. Can It Be Wired Straight To The Battery Compartment?

[Bucko]

How much space is in the keyboard? Perhaps a second lot of rechargeable batteries inside with a socket in the keyboard to charge them. Just put a charger plug into the side when need be.
Use the second lot to power the lights and if they go flat, you can still type.

[crazzyyredneck]

Not Much Room, Havent Pulled It Apart To Check it Out Yet. Kinda To Tired And Sick To Do That lol. I think I Understand What Your Saying Tho. You Mean Have The LED's Run Off Of A USB Cable And Have It Connect To My PC Straight? I Read This The 1st Time And Thought You Meant Wire The USB Cable Into My Keyboard, Was Like How The Heck Am I Gonna Do That lol.

[Bucko]

Yeah, the USB cable I was meaning for JUST the LED power. Same as the second battery set.

[crazzyyredneck]

OK I Gotcha Now. Guess Ill Look Into It Tommorow Morning. Thanks For The Idea Man. Def Gonna Post Some Pics Up When I Get This Goin, Even Tho Its A small Mod lol. Should Look Cool. Havent Decided On Green Or Blue Lighting. Maybe Keys Blue And Num Pad Green? Lol

[crazzyyredneck]

Update:

So Yeah I Did Manage To Pull Apart The Keyboard, Definantly Not Enough Room To Place LED's Without Screwing Up The Buttons... So EL Wire It Is, How Does EL Work? Does It Have Molex Or What? Im Pretty Sure Im just Going To Wire It Into The Battery.

[Luke122]

**EDIT: Oops.. guess I took too long typing my post..lol**

I'm not positive on this, but doesnt EL wire require an inverter or somethign? (or is that on cathodes..)

With a 9v battery can run 1 -5000mcd LED for 170hrs continuously. Lol.. I tried it!
You'd almost never have to replace that battery, and if you have a seperate switch you are set.

If you used say 4-8 of those LED's (one at each corner, and maybe 2 on the numpad or something) and made a compartment for a 9v, you could keep it seperate from the batteries that run the wireless.

In my experience, most wireless kb/mouse combos are quite hard on batteries, although I do have a cordless lasermouse at work, and it's still on the same AA battery after 4 months.

[crazzyyredneck]

Well Ive Been Lookin At EL Wires For About 20 Minutes Now, Ive Seen Some That Run Off Of Inverters Like Cathodes, And Ive Seen Some That Run Off Of Molex Connector. I Do Like The Idea About Putting LED's In The Corner And Having It Run Off Of A 9 Volt Batt. Most Of The Wireless KB/M Combos Ive Used Have Been OK On Batt Life. But This One Is Supposed To Be AWESOME On Battery Life lol...At Least According To Reviews I Have Done. So I Dont Really Mind The Battery Life. If It Gets To Bad I Can Always Unplug The Lights. But Im Also Thinking About Putting A Switch In. Wont Be A Fancy Switch Tho Lol. Just A Regular Toggle Switch.

[Luke122]

I like the covered aircraft style switches.. like on Fast and Furious. :D:D:D

Actually that would suck to have on your keyboard.. you'd snag it on stuff, and it would be huge.. ok, scratch that idea.

[crazzyyredneck]

lol yeah i was looking at those

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I like that just not on my keyboard lol. Actually plan on using one of those on my Case tho. i need to make a switch to cut off my Front LED lights. ill prolly end up usin that or somethin like that if i can find a place to mount it.

[Omega]

Interesting idea. Yeah, EL wire requires inverters to work, and are powered from a molex.

By the way, (I'm an unofficial grammar/spelling Nazi), could you please stop capitalizing every single word? If you don't know what to capitalize and what not to, I'm sure Wikipedia will be able to help you.


(Hopefully, that wasn't too abrasive. It wasn't intended to be.)

[crazzyyredneck]

OK I'll stop doin that, just a habbit I have when typin stuff up lol. Anyways if I do go with EL wires is it possible to bypass the inverter and wire it straight to the battery?. I plan on using two different colors, neon green, and a neon blue color.

[crazybillybob]

El wire would be a great choice for your Wireless Keyboard, And it can be ran off a 9V battery just like the LEDs could. 9V EL wire Inverter $5.50 (http://www.vibelights.com/mini9vinverter.html) I've not used this co., just found them with a quick google search.

El wire is easy to slip behind keys, is bright and can be held into place with a few drops of hot glue or super glue. I've thought about doing this to my wireless keyboard (older logitech model runs about 6 months on 4 AA batts...even with lan parties and lots of BF2142 time), but I don't think it will last much longer :(.

Good luck, keep up the charge to change!!!
CrazyBillyBob

[yakyb]

what immediatly jumps to mind is to take apart the keyboard find an area for a PP3 and wire up some LEDS aroud the outside all pointing inwards throw a switch onto the wiring and your good to go.