Adding LED's to SteelSeries 6G?

[rbyrne]

Hello, I own a SteelSeries 6G and was interesting in adding LED's to the caps and num keys and was wondering if anyone could advise me on how difficult it would be before I open up my keyboard and break it.

They keyboard already has a little LED in the corner that lights up when num/caps/scroll is on so figured it wouldnt be that hard to add a separate wire to a second LED, is this all there is to it?

As a stretch goal I was also wondering how hard it would be to add LED's to WASD.

Any information you could give me would be very much appreciated

Thank you

[kile]

Powering the extra LED from the existing ones would be easy, as you said, but the questions is where are you going to place the LEDs? Every Cherry MX switch already have the little holes that are used to place the LEDs, but those are supposed to have holes on the PCB so that you would only stick the LED pins through the switch and through the holes on the PCB. The 6G PCB does not have these holes, and you can't just drill them because you will destroy the copper traces that are on the PCB. Also, the switch mounting plate is in the way, which means you will probably have to desolder every switch to remove the plate from the PCB and that is a very long and tedious task.

All in all, I'm sure it is possible with some careful wiring, but you will have to be very eager to have those extra LEDs to justify all the work necessary.

Btw, do you have a 6G or 6G v2?

EDIT: http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=43241.0 this guy did something similar, but without desoldering the switches.

[Muirium]

Bear in mind that LEDs are extremely easy to burn out. They want to be wired in series with a resistor to protect them from too much current.

[rbyrne]

I took the casing off to have a look at the PCB. I saw the holes in the cherry MX switches but didnt consider that there wouldnt be any in the PCB etc.

I have a steelseries 6g v2,

Will that make a difference?

[kile]

I have a steelseries 6g v2,

Will that make a difference?

No, the 6G v1 does not have the LED holes either. It makes no sense for the manufacturer to plan holes for LEDs on the PCB just in case they need them. It makes PCB design and production much more difficult.

[dorkvader]

You can remove individual keyswitches from a mounting plate without having to take them all off. What you might consider is desodlering only the switches in question that you want to add LED's to, then drilling holes in the PCB for them, and repairing the PCB traces if necessary. Then finish up with a resistor(s) and maybe toggle switch to turn them on and off. You can most likely use the 5V USB for power, or a small battery (that you'll have to replace every once in a while).

Of course, many of these options are dependent on your implementation. You could just add an LED in parallel with the current num/caps/scroll one, so they both light up together. Ideally, you'd take it before the resistor and add a second resistor for the other LED. There are other options (many involving a transistor) if that's not feasible, but it's hard to say without detailed knowledge of the PCB.

You'll need a second resistor fro the second LED, for current protection.