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Illuminated/ Backlit Keyboard

post #1 of 15
7/13/08 at 4:33am
Thread Starter 
Hi I am trying to find out if there is a replacement lighted keyboard for a dell inspiron e1705 or a mod that i could do. I am not interested in the the usb lights that everyone seems to buy for there laptops I want it stationary. If anyone has any ideas please post.
Thanks in advance.
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post #2 of 15
7/13/08 at 8:28am
No, there is no lighted keyboard for any laptop other than the XPS M1730 and the new "Studio" line of laptops.
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post #3 of 15
7/13/08 at 3:54pm
i dont beleive theres anyway to do it with the 1705. the 1730 motherboard actually has a special place to plug the keyboard into in order to get the lights to work.
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post #4 of 15
7/14/08 at 1:10am
Thread Starter 
What about creating a mod I have heard rumors that its possible but no one has been able to show how it was done. Also that a company will do this for you as well but same thing no more info on who.
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post #5 of 15
7/14/08 at 1:14am
hmmm i've not heard of anything, mod or company that could do it. but i guess just about anything would be possible.
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post #6 of 15
7/14/08 at 2:03am
Search diy backlit keyboard. I haven't read any of the writeups but the results look promising. Personally, I dont really like the look of keyboards that were not intended to be backlit so I'm not too interested.
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post #7 of 15
7/14/08 at 8:48pm
Thread Starter 
Thanks for the tip on diy i found this sorry i dont know how to make a link but it was in japanese but it is translated now.
http://www.excite-webtl.jp/world/eng...=JAEN&wb_dis=2
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post #8 of 15
7/15/08 at 4:22pm
Ah no need to get a literal translation that doesn't make sense. There's even a Japanese user who translated everything himself over on some mac forums.

http://www.hackaday.com/2007/02/24/d...klit-keyboard/
http://www.techtickerblog.com/2008/0...e-pc-keyboard/
http://www.instructables.com/id/How-...your-keyboard/

Three different writeups and the first link provides several other links (one being the page you translated).
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post #9 of 15
7/15/08 at 6:28pm
The only problem is that Mac keyboards are semi-translucent, meaning that the light will show through the keys.

With Dell laptops, I don't think it'll work too well as the keys are not translucent whatsoever, so you may get a bar of light in between the keys, but it's probably not going to help you much, if at all.

The M1730 and the Studio line of laptops achieve the backlit keyboard effect the same way as many desktop backlit keyboards achieve the effect: The lettering on the keys themselves are translucent, with either individual LEDs under the keys, or with several specifically placed LEDs with a translucent rubber mat underneath the keys to even out the light (the latter, in the case of Dell).

Again, I don't think this would be practical at all, being that, as I said, the Mac guide relies on the translucency of the physical keys themselves, which we, as Dell users, don't have.
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post #10 of 15
10/30/08 at 1:06am
I have been thinking about this for bout a week now

If the keys are the same size on the XPS M1730 keyboard it might be worth getting one of those keyboards off ebay and seeing it u can pop off the keys and pop them on your E1705/9400/M1710 keyboard.

That would give u translucent keys at least, then you could try this
http://highlandsun.com/hyc/LumiKey/
electroluminescent sheet idea, after that its just a small question of where you get the power and put the driver for the EL sheet
I thought you could hook it into the power for a usb port but i dont think they provide enough power,

I am going to try all this one day but until then it would be nice if any one with both a E1705 or M1710 and a M1730 could tell me if the keys are the same size

Failing that im going to get a mate who works at a plastics factory to order me some transparent thermosetting plastic, then i will mold them myself
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post #11 of 15
10/30/08 at 2:22am
Keyboards on the E1705 and the M1730 don't have the same layout. I can sometimes see where a backlit keyboard could come in handy. But if you're a touch-typist it's really not 100% neccessary. I'm sure not jonsing for a backlit keyboard (though I wouldn't turn one down).
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post #12 of 15
10/30/08 at 3:36am
Yeah I saw that the layout is different, otherwise I would have considered just dropping a M1730 keyboard into a E1705 but they have a numpad (which I wish I had).

However, if you look closely here
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...1-keyboard.jpg
You can see that the every key to the left of the numpad look remarkably like the E1705 keyboard.

Now i have popped keys off my E1705 keyboard before (accidentally) but they just click straight back on.

So the question still remains can it be done?
Oh and if anyone knows what the power needs are for the M1730 keyboard please let me know, just curious.
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post #13 of 15
10/30/08 at 1:42pm
While the M1730 is significantly bigger than the M1710/9400/M90, there is no way those keys can be the same size and have a numpad imo. Now there are ways to find out if it would fit just based on that picture but I won't go into that. I'm not trying to flame, just giving my opinion.
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post #14 of 15
10/30/08 at 5:12pm
Thread Starter 
Well i never found one that comes out good i have tried but failed. i havent considered swapping keys i will look into it then. thanks for giving me some ideas.
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post #15 of 15
2/21/09 at 6:04pm
the only modd i seen is with a inspiron with a studio 15 backlit keyboard take in count that is was not a plug and play modd the holes for the screws did not aligned with that of the inspiron so at the end he had to glue the kayboard to the palmrest frame and the harness for the backlit keyboard were biger than that harness from the inspiron so he had to remap the harness very complicated shit and on top of that there is a second harness for the power he had to also remap and connect to one of the usb ports so that said i think is not worth it but well he thinks so its looks nice and like factory but once u look under the hood its another history then again i dont really know a lot about your model
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