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LED Keyboard Hack

For awhile now, I've been eying illuminated keyboards with envy. They're cool, and they make typing in the dark a wee bit easier. With all of winter break to work with, I decided I'd try making my own. With a budget of $0. That's right. ZERO. Everything I needed I found at home. Here's my woeful tale.


Click for Project Album

Materials Used:
Generic Keyboard
Fiber Optic Tassel (salvaged from an old toy from the circus years ago)
LED (de-soldered and removed from a light-up pen)

I began by locating a usable keyboard. It just so happens I had an old one lying around, from ~2003. Its design allowed me a little more flexibility around how I would implement my evil plans. The first step was deciding where I would place my LED and fiber optics.



After some hasty planning, I had to prepare the keyboard for surgery. I removed the circuit board with the Num Lock, Caps Lock, etc. indicators and de-soldered the LED for the Scroll Lock. No one uses it anyway. I would use the scroll lock button to turn on my illumination LED instead of the indicator LED.



After disfiguring the plastic slightly, I threading the fiber optics through a slit I made (I folded the tassel end in newspaper to keep the strands together).



The tassel end, I glued down, to keep the under side clean. I had to put a pair of pliers and a hand vacuum on it to keep it from popping up before the glue was dry.



Then came the tedious part. Placing and securing each and every strand of fiber. This took scotch tape, Elmers glue, and more patience than should be spent on something so frivolous.



Some of the keys needed to be reshaped because the fiber optic bundle was too thick. In reality, the uneven edge is hardly noticeable, and it even opens up more gaps for light to shine through.



The de-soldered Scroll Lock Indicator socket needed to be connected with the LED I was using. Wires from an ancient headphone set were sacrificed to make this happen.




The end product: a surprisingly intact keyboard with a little more flair for the useless, that's even still unique in daylight. And I did achieve my budget of $0.

Dodge Caravan: The definition of All-American FAIL.

After 6 days of driving around Atlanta in our rental set of wheels, it’s hard not to have an opinion of the minivan we drove in. Compared to the Honda Odyssey that my mom loves, the Dodge Caravan seems like an archaic relic from the 1990’s.



The car itself just feels downright cheap. The panels are made from basic textured plastic, and the seats and ceiling are clad in second-rate fabric that screams “budget car” (this is the ‘average-joe’ model without leather, mind you). The center dash console is a big, ugly tower of climate controls, vents, and audio options. Even less expensive cars than this tend to have a semblance of style.

The shoddy build quality applies to more than the appearance, it’s physically noticeable. The rear climate controls are mounted in the center of the ceiling, which happens to not be reinforced. When you use the knobs, they entire control box moves. They essentially bolted the console to the flimsy ceiling panel, without securing it to the metal frame of the car. Without a gimmicky DVD player bolted to the ceiling, it's hard to forgive the car designers for neglecting the ceiling so much.

The doors are paneled in the same ugly, hard plastic as the dashboard, and surprisingly anti-ergonomic. The opening and closing mechanism is a short, stubby flipper thing that gives you very little leverage when closing the door. It’s also inconveniently placed so unless you’re a contortionist, reaching it is aggravating at best.

One of the “features” of the Dodge Caravan is it’s Stow-n-Go storage in the floor of the middle row. The makers of the car are so proud of it that they emblazon the logo on the side of the car door. Stow-n-Go, frankly, sucks. It’s a hole in the floor that, while convenient, is poorly concealed and detracts from the quality of the car. The folding panels that cover the storage space feel flimsy. As you walk over them, they have a little bit of give, and sometimes squeak. Contrast this with the Honda, which has a solidly hinged door and rotating storage compartments all concealed by well-planned floor mats. The only advantage Dodge has here is that you can fold seats into the compartments Which essentially turns your minivan into a de-glorified pick-up. Not that you can’t easily remove the seats in the Honda…

It should be pointed out that Dodge also claims that “no minivan offers better fuel economy than Grand Caravan,” followed by a little numerical ‘see here’ symbol to cover their asses, legally. On paper, 25 MPG Highway is pretty good. Realistically and in practice, it’s no better than the Honda (which is over a year older). Pricing isn’t competitive at all, with about a grand separating the two.

Final Rating: I would pity any family that bought this vehicle… except they did it to themselves.