also here is a video of the flashing light it is soo bright on 12v!! its in .mpg format just right click then download its 255K download it from here
Your saying the led just flashes upon powering it, no extra circuitry? Woah! However you can't control the pulse a 555time can fix that...but the circuitry gets bigger still you can do it I guess if you stick to SMD. Mike
OK i have found out that i can use the School CNC every thursday i am going to use this to cut the plexi-- would acrylic work better? all i have to do is work out a final design :s i could use it tomorrow if i want to again, i need to work out a design :S oh dear... hard work...
I though acrylic was plexi, but I might be wrong. Please please please come up with a design today, malcs, so you can CNC it tomorrow! I can't wait! Do you know where to get the SMD LEDs from now?
As far as I know plexiglass is acrylic. Your two basic types of plastic are acrylic and polycarbonate. The main differences are that polycarbonate can have a nicer finish but is slightly more brittle than acrylic. Please someone correct me if I'm wrong though since I'm not 100%.
oh ok then i thought acrylic was slightly more fragile than plexi but there ya go.. i will use about 0.5cm thick plexi for the main thing and then 0.6 or the nearest thing to it for the keys that should give a total width of below 2cm if i get the PCB right
ok the keyboard is going to be 450mm by 160mm that should be fine on the CNC i may need to post a full size pic on the forums to remind myself :s actually i might just link it :s ok im going to make the top 0.5mm thick and the bottom same, and the keys 0.6mm thick aha!! i see something forming in my mind... time to get into 3ds max to try out some concepts
yarss indeedy am trying to get the layout correct with the traces on the keyboard + the model has to be real life size for the CNC!!! i am also working out sizes of the kyes spacebar etc.. keys should hav the same surface area as a normal key
OK here is a quick work in progress shot have completed the design-- note the rounded corners etc... i wont do traces as that will mess up the design when im doing the final CAD but still i am going to do lights later zoomed out--
Looking nice so far. It would be great if you could give the keys a slight curve on the face. Like so they're slightly convex. Can't wait to see how this turns out!
yeah would love to do that to the keys but i think that might be a wee bit difficult to do on every single key esp. with the CNC lol
also... here is a lit version of the keyboard with an idea of where the numlock capslok scrollok stuff lights will go
Small point, but plexi is short for Plexiglass, a brand name. That is all, we now return you to your regularly scheduled modding. BTW, watching this thread with high interest.
ok this link is a full size plan view for me to do the overview on the CNC tomorrow i may not get round to doing the actual CNC-ing but at least i will have it all on the PC ready to do the full sized keyboard plan this is a 100% image that is the real size of everything