Modding Star-trek style keyboard!

I saw ths a metku, and I had an old keyoard lying around, so i ripped the insides out. Having a touchy-thingy keyboard is neat, it's pretty cool xcept for 2 things:

1) There's no lights
2) The goddam thing keeps moving around.

I'm thinking of using a piece of plexi, and glueing the keyboard to that. Then i could add some LEDs in the sides for light effets, maybe even use several colours for a blending effect. But that would leave me with a bunch of wires sticking out the sides. Any suggestions on how to do this properly so it doesn't end up looking like crap?

 

can you either post pictures of your mod or the link to where you saw it on metku? it's hard to help when i can't picture what you're talking aboot.


agent out

 

Have a look at this or this article. You could do something similar to the plexi under your ..uhm.. 'keyboard'.

 

This is the one:

http://metku.net/modgallery/detail.php?id=2559
Only mine isn't taped down.

Yeah those articles are a good idea, specially the second one. I hadn't thought of putting the LEDs in the middle. Thanks

 

They're seriously impractical since you can't tell if your fingers are on the keys without looking.

 

Sure you can, just look to see what's happening on the screen. besides, I'm not going to play games with it. It is, primarily, for pimpage.

 

are you sure that it'll work under a sheet of plexi, or will it be on top?

 

It's going on top, you need to be pretty accurate where you tap on the 'keys' to make a connection. Hang on a sec, I'll show you a few pics in a moment if I can find a digicam.

 

here's the whole keyboard:


Just so you get an idea what the letter size/keyboard-ratio is.

Here's a closeup with a little 5-second paint showing how small the contacts actually are. That's why it won't work under plexi

 

Wow if its just for pimpage and you want to protect it why not get some lamanent and a blow dryer and do the keyboard. Putting a sheet under it would probably be helpful for making the contects recognized being hit, but im not sure exactly what you are after here. A perfectly flat looking keyboard or somthing that looks like the keys are flat. If you want just the keys you would be able to use somthing like a laptop keyboard but the switch over would be hell.

So really what exactly do you want from this what is the main goal from this particular peice and have you seen the rubber keyboards? I am actually typing on mine now. They suck for halflife counterstrike since the space bar doesnt like to stay down, but for cool look and feel they are not bad at all.