Mod your keyboard - Now updated with images!

[Tech&ME]

Disclaimer: This tutorial is presented for moding your keyboard and is adviced to perform this tut only if you are interested and wants to take the risk ! This is for the illustration purposes only. I (Tech&ME) can not be held responsible for damages resulting from anything that you may decide to do to your hardware. I also can not and will not be held responsible for injury to your self or others as a result of attempting to mod your keyboard or for others. (You can try this with your old hardware first)

So you still have those ugly green LED’s on that keyboard of yours? In this tut, I’ll show you how to hook up some new good looking LED’s to that keyboard to give your desktop a new look!

This is a very simple, yet very attractive mod which will cost you less that rs 50 - 100 bucks.

Parts Required:



3 X - 3mm/5mm LED’s (Blue, Red, Green, UV)
Soldering Iron
Solder
Screwdriver

(some keyboard have more than 3 led's so purchase according to your requirements)




Step 1: Flip the keyboard over and locate the screws. My keyboard had 10 screws, all in visible areas so locating the screws was not a problem. Take your screwdriver and start unscrewing all the screws one by one. Remember to keep all the screws in a safe place, and to separate the different sizes so that putting it back together won’t be a problem.

In the meanwhile plug in your soldering iron, and let it heat up.

Step 2: Once all the screws have been removed, take off the back plate and locate the PCB on the top left corner of the keyboard.
There will be a screw or two holding it down. Unscrew those screws and lift the PCB to reveal the LED’s and other components.



The LED’s will be mounted there. (remember not to touch the circuits and other parts of the PCB with your hands!)

Step 3: This is where your soldering iron and your soldering skills are put to the test (sort of!).



Turn over the PCB and de-solder the first LED. Make sure you do not place the iron on the PCB for long periods of time or else, the soldering iron will burn right through it!

Step 4 : Once that is done put in your LED’s.



Remember to put the long lead of the LED through the hole with the + sign! Do the same with the remaining LED’s.

Step 5: Screw the PCB back in place. Adjust the electronic pad (the rubber sheet & the drawn circuit sheet), so that it is aligned properly with respect to every key and also the PCB – Very Important step.

Step 6: Screw the back plate in place and connect your keyboard to PC and in on.



And that's when you start getting a new look from your desktop!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. And if you have done the moding or not please comment !

Your suggestions and comments are important to me so please post them here!

Acknowledgment: I would like to thank Nuwanda, who lives in Dubai for helping me prepare this tutorial. I also thank those who were helpful but were not directly involved in this tutorial. I do not take the full credit for this tuturial since many other people were also involved.

[goobimama]

Maybe you could also post some pictures of your keyboard mods to give us some inspiration???

[alib_i]

Just changing LEDs .. aah .. I was expecting more !!

Can somebody help me in disabling Windows Key ( left or right one .. or both ) .. coz it's very irritating while playing games.

-----
alibi

[Vishal Gupta]

Originally Posted by alib_i

Can somebody help me in disabling Windows Key ( left or right one .. or both ) .. coz it's very irritating while playing games.

Open regedit and nevigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Keyboard Layout

Here create or change (if exists) a value with the following details:

Data Type: BINARY
Value Name: Scancode Map
Value: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 03 00 00 00 00 00 5B E0 00 00 5C E0 00 00 00 00

OR

U can follow this link:

Disabling the Windows Key on Microsoft Natural Keyboard

[Tech&ME]

Originally Posted by goobimama

Maybe you could also post some pictures of your keyboard mods to give us some inspiration???

ya i will post the photo's of this mod, but the problem is I don't know how to post the taken photo images in the post itself. That is, how to make them appear directly in the thread (without external link!)

If you or someone can explain this to me, I will post the Photo' taken using my Nokia 6600.

[drgrudge]

^^
1. Upload the photos. Use www.imageshack.us
2. There you can get links as thumbnails as also. Copy-paste that here.
3. Or, in case the photos are small in size and space, post it as it is. Enclose it within [img]link of photo[/img]

[Tech&ME]

Originally Posted by goobimama

Maybe you could also post some pictures of your keyboard mods to give us some inspiration???

Yes! Now the post have been updated with images.

Please post your comments and suggestions and also tell me if you did perform the mod on your keyboard or not.

Originally Posted by drgrudge

^^
1. Upload the photos. Use www.imageshack.us
2. There you can get links as thumbnails as also. Copy-paste that here.
3. Or, in case the photos are small in size and space, post it as it is. Enclose it within [img]link of photo[/img]

Thankyou so much for helping me upload the images.

[evewin89]

My old keyboard look like ur modified keyboard pic dat u hav posted.

[MasterMinds]

we should try putting one scroll wheel in the keyboard by our self isnt it interesting rather just changing the led's that a kid can do with some soldering skills