Good Keyboard for my incoming Alienware

Alright well to start im getting the Alienware m17x R3. and i was looking through good Keyboards to go along with it. I have noticed a load of Illuminated Keyboards and even some that have Each Key Individualy Lit. What i was wondering is if there was a program to either Have My Laptop Keystroke activated Lighting or to find a good Keyboard that has it. For instance say the entire Keyboard is lit up Blue when i would press a key only that key would change to Red and turn back to blue when i released my finger. Is this a Possibility on any keyboard or even a program to do so?

 

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that it doesn't exist with the exception of maybe the $1,600 Optimus Maximus keyboard and it's chinese knockoff by Luxeed that I don't think even exists anymore. Even then, the keys are customizable but I don't think they are keystroke-sensitive.

And also I really don't see how it would be effective anyway since most keyboards with individual lighting are made to avoid backlight bleed and your finger would be covering the new color anyway...

Also the M17x keyboards are all lit in zones and are not controllable individually.

 

You are looking for a LED keyboard, which are really expensive.
To my knowledge there currently is no affordable keyboard on the market which has keystroke sensitive lighting.

If you can let go of that thought, i can highly recommend the Razer Lycosa. It is by far the best keyboard i have ever gotten my hands on, and i had dozens.

 

There aren't any keyboards out there except a very small few that do the lighting key by key, and those that do don't do things like what you describe. As was mentioned earlier, the Razer Lycosa is nice. So is the TactX keyboard (takes two USB ports), although the TactX series is just rebranded Logitech gear. Logitech has some very nice keyboards as well, come to think of it. If the R3 keyboard is the same as the R2 (and it looks like it very well could be, the keys are just slightly repainted in a newish format) it actually has a good built-in keyboard. The innate keyboard itself, however, will never illuminate key by key unless Dell makes it so. If the R3 holds to tradition, it will have 4 main zones for the primary keys that you can change (there are animation options, mostly with transitions/dimming/etc).

Honestly, if you just want a good keyboard, my favorite is still the Model M from IBM . No, seriously. It's fugly as heck but honestly those mechanical keys were never quite equaled elsewhere. They're also nearly indestructible.

If money is no object or concern: check out the Optimus Maximus that was mentioned. It's crazy.

 

Good DIY project lol.

I know keyboards that have key by key led lighting and use generic user replaceable mechanical switches. (cherry switches)

If you were to get some led control boards like those that some people use for lighting and do your own additional led wiring under each key you could then wire the controller to the switch.

This would be a pretty big project and cost a lot of money though, but it would be one of a kind.

 

Would be interesting,.

 

Yeah this led stuff is popular in the joystick mod community.

PurpleArms has some neat gadgets, the masterstrike board may be ideal if you were to attempt some kind of keyboard mod.

YouTube - Arc-Eye LED mod and MasterStrike Demo

problem with this is most led controlers are limited to like 8 buttons or so, a keyboard has a lot more keys, so that means multiple boards probably, also your going to probably need external power as I think you may start to pull more power than a single usb connection will handle.

joystick buttons are just switches though, so if you got a keyboard like what I mentioned wiring would be no different than for a joystick just a lot more of it.

 

Aye. I do know that the TactX keyboard requires two USB connections because of it's power draw, and it just has two lighting zones. Besides, I'm not sure about the Alienware stuff but I think most LED backlit accessories just have a limited number of LEDs, maybe one or two for each color per zone. If you want a keyboard that can have a different color per key, you have to have an LED for each key for each and every color.

4 colors per key on a typical 108 key keyboard is 432 LEDs minimum.

 

RGB Leds are a single led that changes color depending on what power you feed it, but controlling them is harder since the led controller must be programed for RGB support.

 

Aren't they also more expensive? I'd imagine if you're only doing 2 or 3 colors (which if you just want a mechanical switch on a keypress is fine) it might be cheaper or more feasible to do it that way. I'll be the first to admit my knowledge of modern LEDs is fairly limited compared to what it ought to be. I've been too busy dealing with cell phone technologies at work lately.

 

Well i was looking over a few razer Products and it Seems that the BlackWidow ultimate has individual key illumination. I figured if it can already be customized to any color why can't i just Program it to change after a keystroke.

 

sounds like a DIY project as others mentioned

 

Razer Blackwidow Ultimate only does the color blue, it just has 5 levels of brightness.

 

ah ok. well that is slightl dissapointing but understandible considering the inividual Lighting. Would i e able to have the Lighting off and have the key lighting turn on when i hit a key? It would seem a lot cheeper to use an already lit keyboard than tryng to light one myself. I am not exactly able to just go out and buy whatever i need when i need it.

 

Again, when your finger is covering the key why would it even matter if it lights up :S

RGB LED's are actually not much more expensive than normal LEDs. It would definitely be a DIY project. You would probably need to do it mechanically (with switches underneath each key) and a general controller for changing the overall color.

Something like this would be a near-end result:
YouTube - Colour Control of EACH Key - Logitech G15 RGB MOD

 

Its just ging to be a fun project for me. But when i type i never cover the entire Key. Not that i have small hands or anthing i just only press half or so when i type. Not to mention the Lights will flow from beneath the keys to. I don't know i would have to use some type of Reflective surface for it to really carry. I just thought this might be a pretty interesting concept and i was just checking to see if it could be done or if it has been done.

 

That youtube video...one mode shows that each keypress sends out a wave of lights centered on the key you pressed. That's cool stuff. Seems there might be a guide for it too.

 

Thanks for the help guys. I'm going to try it. I might get the G19. Ill let yall know how it goes. Im probobly going for the Razer Keyboard because of the Quality but im going to get one of the G15s or 19s just to mess around with. Lets hope i don'e Skew it up beyond help lol.

 

That beats AlienFX every day of the week anytime. Makes it feel like so from the past