Cheap & Easy Glowing Keyboard Mod

[Sugar_Kane]

what about reflective underpants?

 

[second exodous]

what about reflective underpants?

Its hard to picture how you will play your Pandora. Are you a contortionist?

 

[Sugar_Kane]

It's probably best if no one tries to picture me playing a Pandora in reflective underpants, or any form of underpants for that matter

 

[Nupfi]

I imagine something like this... only with more Pandora.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

Less pandora, more lightspeed briefs I say!

 

[VRAndy]

I've searched, and found one post of ED saying they're looking at possibly using glow-in-the-dark paint, a bunch of hype for a few days, and then a couple months later Chip saying it was deemed unfeasible.

Glow In The Dark paint is pretty worthless if it's used on the INSIDE of a clam-shell.

 

[mali]

^ Yeah, paint it outside, dude! Oh wait...

 

[second exodous]

I've searched, and found one post of ED saying they're looking at possibly using glow-in-the-dark paint, a bunch of hype for a few days, and then a couple months later Chip saying it was deemed unfeasible.

Glow In The Dark paint is pretty worthless if it's used on the INSIDE of a clam-shell.

You could close the lid enough for the light to re-charge them. I still don't think that glow in the dark keys would work though, the screen brightness would make the keys dim in comparison, screen and keys are just too close together. I haven't tried it though, I guess to try it out one could get some glow in the dark stickers and stick them next to the controls on a SP and see if you can still see them.

 

[ThaDSman]

I've searched, and found one post of ED saying they're looking at possibly using glow-in-the-dark paint, a bunch of hype for a few days, and then a couple months later Chip saying it was deemed unfeasible.

Glow In The Dark paint is pretty worthless if it's used on the INSIDE of a clam-shell.

Yeah and charging the glow paint in direct sunlight can potentially blow up your Pandora's LCD...Like my poor Moto Q9C

 

[fusion_power]

If Keyborad, light then do it right or leave it.
So using real micro LED's underneeth the keyboard would be the only option for me. You would also need a transparent Keyboard rubber Mat and the printing would be only at the black areas, so every Button label is actualy a paint-free area which shows the transparent Rubber underneeth. The Hard Cover ontop of the Buttons is already transparent so no worries there.
You don't even need an LED for every button, small light pipe strucures should cover more than one button per LED.

But because you can't mod the PCB for this, it's very unlikeley we will ever get a "real" Keyboard light.

 

[Prometheus]

But because you can't mod the PCB for this, it's very unlikeley we will ever get a "real" Keyboard light.

I thought that the keyboard backlight solder pads had been left in?

 

[hobbyman II]

fyi, glow in the dark paint (of the safe legal kind) fades and becomes less active over a period of a few months, it has a "life" and degrades quite quickly, other luminescent sources are radioactive and either very dim (like the tritium capsules in military watches) or too radioactive to be safe and would not do the Pandora or you much good (unless you like having two heads, huge tumours and stray decay particles zipping through the Pandora and crashing it every few seconds), other things like the chemicals in light sticks run down quite fast, as you probably know.

the LED pads are included on the PCB, afaik they are the pads labelled KPBL (Key Pad Back Light) in this picture, even if you didn't have the pads available it would not be impossible to add them in and nick the power off the main rail via a voltage regulator, should be well inside tolerance. (disclaimer, I'm a electronics hobbyist amongst other things, I'm pretty sure this is possible as I describe it, then again, like everyone else here, I haven't actually GOT a Pandora yet to check this out, but it should be possible)

 

[Prometheus]

@hobbyman II - MWeston gave some detail on that recently.

Also, the KP_BL pads can sink 160mA and the source is the battery directly. The + side is the battery and the - side is the FET in the TPS65950 sinking the current with PWM control available. As you can tell, that means no current limiting so 160mA is the safe number but you have to use resistors to be sure you don't fry anything yourself.

 

[hobbyman II]

so enough power to have a LED for every key if you want, all you need then is a transparent key pad membrane, that's not forgetting you could draw more power by using the + Pad to drive a transistor base or something, and draw power directly off the battery through the transistor (low leakage circuit naturally), or you could mount two ultra brights (with hooded lenses) in the screen bezel to illuminate a standard keypad, easy! (say 2 x 30ma at 1.8v in series)

 

[fusion_power]

But because you can't mod the PCB for this, it's very unlikeley we will ever get a "real" Keyboard light.

I thought that the keyboard backlight solder pads had been left in?

Right but these only the pads itself, you also have to put the LEDs somewhere
Not much space for this I think.

 

[Qwertyuiop]

But because you can't mod the PCB for this, it's very unlikeley we will ever get a "real" Keyboard light.

I thought that the keyboard backlight solder pads had been left in?

Right but these only the pads itself, you also have to put the LEDs somewhere
Not much space for this I think.

Not to mention the keymats are opaque.

 

[jasay]

I thought that the keyboard backlight solder pads had been left in?

Right but these only the pads itself, you also have to put the LEDs somewhere
Not much space for this I think.

I'm also curious how this would work. I'm no expert, but based on these two images (Board & Keymat) I would guess the button cross section would look something like this:

So, if I'm right, where do the LEDs/lightpipes go and, if I'm wrong, how is the keypad set up and does that aid or hinder the keypad backlight modification?

 

[hobbyman II]

if the keypad material is transparent then light will travel through it like it does in a lightpipe, so the led only has to be near to the key it illuminates, or you could just use several in strategic locations, if you look at your phone keyboard (if it's anything like mine) there are only a couple of LEDs to illuminate the whole thing, with a transparent membrane and clear text areas where the paint is, you see black text when the light is off, and illuminated text when the light is on, my comment about having a LED for every key was more to imply that there was plenty of power to spare, rather than you need a LED for every key.

 

[jasay]

if the keypad material is transparent then light will travel through it like it does in a lightpipe, so the led only has to be near to the key it illuminates, or you could just use several in strategic locations, if you look at your phone keyboard (if it's anything like mine) there are only a couple of LEDs to illuminate the whole thing, with a transparent membrane and clear text areas where the paint is, you see black text when the light is off, and illuminated text when the light is on, my comment about having a LED for every key was more to imply that there was plenty of power to spare, rather than you need a LED for every key.

Ah, something along these lines then? Although you'd probably want the paint covering everything except the letters so you don't get light spillage between the keypad and case.

 

[fusion_power]

Ah, something along these lines then? Although you'd probably want the paint covering everything except the letters so you don't get light spillage between the keypad and case.

Good Idea, if the transparent rubber itself is the "light pipe", you can enlighten the whole Keypad without the LEDs sitting straight underneeth the buttons. AND you don't need many LEDs. I made a sketch ages ago where I "mounted" 11 LEDs to lighten up the Keypad. Menu Buttons not included: