keyboards ...

Ok, so I got a K52Jr-A1 laptop ... great for my needs (the G73Jh was overkill, weighed a ton, and was unwieldy to carry).

I miss the lighted keyboard though... both the K52 and the G73 keyboards have identical size - 348mm wide - and both their connection cables appear identical ... would the G73 Keyboard be able to replace - and have light - the K52 Keyboard?

 

Your link doesn't give the length in mm of the keyboard, but it says G60 series, so maybe it will work, just double check the keyboard sizes. The G51/G60/G73 keyboard is the same, with the exception that the G73 has a metallic shiny grey finish instead of matte black. See this post for getting power to it: http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/465841-ul30-backlit-keyboard-mod.html

 

Asus G73 Keyboard @ Asusparts.eu and Asus K52 Keyboard @ Asusparts.eu

 

Looks good to me, but don't blame me if it doesn't work.. hehe. I wouldn't be caught dead paying that price. Look on ebay or something perhaps..

 

It seems that asusparts has increased the price a lot.

I bought this same keyboard from their website for 62 Euros including 19% VAT back in July. With 20 Euros for shipping, the total cost was 82 Euros.

Now it will cost around 116 Euros including 19% VAT and with shippping the total cost will be around 136 Euros.

 

While Asus is known to recycle keyboards and their connectors, I would estimate it highly unlikely that the backlight would work as the power connections are probably not built onto the K52 motherboard layout.

Doing the keyboard mod that AuG links certainly voids your warranty, but there are folks that can't live without the blinky-lights ..

 

The backlight mode will not void the warranty if you are careful enough while implementing it.
If you don't damage anything inside the notebook, then it would not be easy for ASUS to find out that you are using a moded backlight keyboard because you can remove the moded keyboard and all the related wiring and send the notebook back for repair with the original keyboard.

 

I would have thought that doing anything with a soldering iron on a motherboard inside a notebook would generally leave some evidence of modification as you discuss in your mod thread .... but perhaps when you're really good with that sort of thing ... .

 

That is the reason why I wrote that warning concerning the soldering in my original guide. Good soldering need some skills and some tools.

The Wire Glue is the solution when one has not the necessary tools and skill for soldering.

As an electrical engineer, I have designed many PCBs and soldered a lot of times. I usually do the soldering under a microscope using a better soldering station.

Actually that backlight circuit was just a quick solution and a test circuit. As you could see from the photos, it is not done very professionally.

In that circuit, I used an adapter PCB to solder the QT-chip on. I wanted to build a new PCB for that touch sensor circuitry, but so far I never got the time to do so.

 

Turbo - two questions
Can you take a photo of the 'touch' sensor installed, as it looks NOW (complete, and the laptop closed).
and do the FN+F3/F4 keys not work?

 

The Fn+F3/4 keys will not work because they're acpi hotkeys, not hardwired brightness adjustment. The BIOS would have to support a backlit keyboard for them to work.

 

To see how the installed touch sensor is working have a look at this youtube video that I made:
YouTube - ‪N71JQ backlight Keyboard implementation‬‎

It is hidden under the optional TV antenna placeholder plastic cap.

As ALLurGroceries mentioned, the FN+F3/F4 keys will not work as there is no support for backlight keyboard in the bios.
I think the dimming fuction will only work if notebook has a working backlight keyboard connector.
It will not work with the self implemented solution.
Of course one can implement a more advanced circuit that will also support dimming.

 

Turbo - that's sick.
Can I bring my K52 down to you for the work? *LOL* j/k

Groceries - thanks for the reply. I'm happy w/ the laptop as it is. IT's a LOT lighter (about 60% less) then the G73 (maybe that's because the brick is also a LOT LOT LOT smaller and the overall backpack weight is less too *L*).