And that's it for this installment.
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| I didn't go very all out with this documentary. I was barely even planning to add EL wire to the X-Keys pad. I just started fiddling and ended up with a light-up keypad. Anyway, first take your X-Keys 20-Key Programmable Keypad ($99 - ouch) apart by removing the 4 rubber feet from the bottom and unscrewing the Philllips screws beneath them. |
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| Remove all the pop-off buttons and run your EL wire back and forth between them. The 2.3mm wire is exactly the right thickness - the keys aren't obstructed, but one more .1mm and I think they would hit the wire. Perfect! I cut off the wire at the bottom when it reached the last key in the row, and I didn't bother covering it with anything, because I'm never going to touch it (it can shock you). |
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| You'll need to snip half the depth of the rim of plastic that sticks in. I went about every 3/16" with a straight down vertical cut using a cheap Radio Shack wire snipper. It made little teeth ready to be snapped off. |
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| The little shards broke off very easily, and pretty cleanly, and can't be seen once the pad is reassembled. That's important to me. I don't like to crap up my electronics with scratches, sandpaper marks, dried glue spots, plastic cracks/burs, or sharp chisels jammed into their faces in frustration. |
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| Here's why we snipped the pieces out - the wire goes a little under the sides, and is very difficult to keep from doing so. It could be just that I used simple scotch tape to hold the wire in, because I seem to be out of any other kind of adhesive, but you will need to cut at least one little groove for the wire to fit through at the top. I cut another hole in the bottom half of the casing, effectively extending the USB cord hole to run the wire out just below it. Not a super clean cut, but no will ever see it on my desk, including me, and it's a very tight, factory-feeling fit. I seriously need a glue gun, or even some Krazy™ Glue. |
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| Lit up without the keys, powered by a CoolNeon pipsqueak driver and one Radio Shack Enercell™ 9volt battery. I will be getting a low-profile wallwart for this from Radio Shack to avoid constant battery replacement, and I'll probably mount a switch in the case. Probably an SPDT pusbutton, or maybe I'll go all digital, and allow for turning it on and off through the PC. Or maybe I'll give up, and just go with the switch-mounted-in-the-case idea... |
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| Snap all the buttons back into place. This is a good view of the factory heat shrinking the EL wire came with, and the place where I mentioned you'd need to cut a groove in the upper half of the case to allow for it to sneak out. This is also a good time to plug CoolNeon. They're a very good company to do your EL business with. They have wire in bulk for $1.50/ft (minimum 100' for that price), which is a pretty competetive. |
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| And here it is, completely not impressing me under the bright light of my monitor-top Eclipse™ lamp. See if you can guess what all the buttons are for. Bonus points if you guess the unlabeled ones. I'd like to get some really good printouts, and use higher res graphics, and fill up all the buttons. You can program one of the buttons to flip to a second mode, where all 19 of the other buttons become a different thing. The LED changes from green to red in this mode. These are mostly crappy inkjet prints of screencaps of their respective programs' icons. |
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| A clearer view of the inverter/battery hookup. I made an accurate Illustrator layout (curved button bottoms and everything) of the entire button face pad, acconting for the spacing of the buttons and all, in case I ever decide to lay a single graphic across all buttons. I can just put a picture in the background of the button layout and throw the button labels/images over that, and it'll be spaced properly in the cut-out buttons - it'll look like it's behind a window grid. I would want a very high quality printout if I did that, though. My printer is currently too crappy to bother. Someday... |
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| Here's how it looks in complete darkness. I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't illuminate the button faces at all. It throws them into stark silhouette. The buttons have clear tops, but typical tan/grey bottoms, which obscure the light. PI Engineering, makers of X-Keys Programmable Keypads don't seem to make clear keys, but they do have some colored buttons that are translucent. I might pick up some in Blue (XK-A-004BL) Retail Price $4.50. |
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| This is the way I wish it looked, but this is a 15 second exposure with my Elph camera on a small tripod. So's the next pic. It doesn't at all glow like this in real life. Sigh. |
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| I probably have about
98' of CoolNeon High Brightness EL wire left. That won't be nearly enough
if I go the "all wire" route with my Tron costume for next year.
I didn't get a chance to make it this year with all the overtime at work,
which just means I have a full year to make it actually be exactly like
Tron. A full year to figure out how to use lasers to get myself inside this
computer. And that's it for this installment. |