"Frosted" key with electrode in place.
2x5mm LEDs, 1 white, 1 blue.
Key on LEDs (no illumination)... hrmm...
Key on LEDs (White illumination- a little too intense in one spot)
Key on LEDs (blue illumination (which in real life doesn't have that nasty aqua spot, not sure how to photoshop that out)... same problem.)
Time passes... I come in 3rd at a LAN tourney... I return home
Manufacture 3 more keys! Wrap them in aluminum tape to rid myself of 1.) Light leaking 2.) uneven intensity around the key ring.
4 keys with electrodes (1 flipped, just to show what the keys are, its sanded on the other side)
4 white LEDs with their tops sanded off. This also helps diffuse the light out of these narrow-angle LEDs a bit more, plus the fit into the holes I drilled perfectly now, I guess I drilled them just a little too shallow.
1 white and 1 blue 5mm LED GOOPed into place on each key.
Money Shots!
Lights on, white LED on (normal key state). A little intense in the one corner, but a lot of its the camera, and the angle.
Lights off, white LED on (normal key state). A small degree of light leaking out the bottom, but nothing that won't be cured when I spray paint the electrodes black, and spray paint the key bottoms black to eliminate light leakage)
Lights off, blue LED on (key touch state). It's a little less aqua and a little more blue in real life, but I was unable to get the effect I wanted in photoshop.
So that's the state of affairs. I've redesigned the front panel baste plate to allow me to have these keys perfectly aligned by CADing in 1.05" (the extra 50 mils for the foil tape) holes into the base plate design. I'm waiting to hear back from Ben at mountain mods about the ETA to get the new parts in my hands. Until then, I'll keep chomping away at what I can do.
For the time being, I'm going to split the chassis control board off from the board that has all the case indicators. For one, it was getting too big for me to use my favorite board fab house, and 2, I've dediced it'll get its own PIC for controlling 8 RGB indicators for ANY friggin color I like.
Until next time (and I'm not sure when that will be...) Stay tuned, same bat forum, same bat post.