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Got a new cherry mx keyboard with illuminated keys (Tesoro Durandal Ultimate G1NL with Cherry MX brown and red lighting, regrettably ANSI layout but needed new keyboard fast and there are no mx brown iso keyboards available now)
The lettering illumination is not that great for the localized lettering that is in the lower part of the keycaps (this is the seconds strongest setting which is quite nice bright for the upper letterings and will not have backlight bleeding (the photo kinda exaggerates it as it is taken directly from the top and not from an angle as you are seeing it, the max brightness is a bit visible even from angle)
that is due to the location of the led light being in the higher part of the keycap on cherry mx switches and will probably be the same for all cherry mx based keyboards so not much point in trying other model
Quite like the keyboard so far except the bad visibility of localized lettering. Because the keycaps are black the lighting is kinda important to see the lettering.
Thinking of ways to imrpove it.
I have ordered the 40A-L o-ring dampeners from wasd keyboards but when I think about it now since they are not clear/translucent they will probably make the backlighting a little worse as they will partly block the light source getting to the rest of the keycap, so I also ordered some clear ones
I ordered the ones from wasd because they were the only on ebay stating in description the rubber hardness and thickness and 40A-L were the ones I thought I'd like the most. The landing pads are totally out of question for illuminated keyboards as they will completely block the diode
Also I think it would help the light spread around the keycap if the inside of the keycap was not as dark as it is on my keayboard. So I was thinking of some way to improve that. Painting would be a bit dangerous as I don't want the paint to get to the bottom of the keycap, only the sides so it doesn't affect the side where the lettering is but helps spread the light around the whole keycap.
Looked around ebay and the best solution I've found seems to be the vinyl wrap used for cars. It is self adhesive so it will be easy to apply (you just have to cut it to correct shape) and should be possible to remove if needed so I would not make any permanent mods and could revert them in case of needing an RMA.
It is quite cheap (less then $5 incl shipping) so I got both the white and chrome wraps as I am not sure which will reflect the light better, so will test it out. Should be enough for one keyboard easily with some extra for testing and spare.
Was also considering using some glow in the dark o-ring but haven't found them cheap enough to give them a try and they probably won't help that much either. They react nicely to UV lighting and red lighting will probably not make them glow much, maybe to some extent. Surely I but don't want to change the diodes in the keyboard and also the red light combined with green glow would probably make some ugly color (some sources say yellow, some say brown, some say white - either of those would probably not look as good as red,blue,green).
Let me know what is your experience with dampeners and it's effect on backlighting and if you tried to improve the backlighting in the lower part of the keycaps. I am guessing most cherry mx keyboards will have that issue to some extent, unless they are white which could help a bit, but most keyboards using cherry mx are gaming keyboards and are illuminated and black so there should be a lot of you facing the same issues as me.
Hope to hear your ideas. It will take few weeks before the stuff is delivered and I can do some testing but will update the thread with the results of my findings on the subject.
Thanks for reading my long post.
The lettering illumination is not that great for the localized lettering that is in the lower part of the keycaps (this is the seconds strongest setting which is quite nice bright for the upper letterings and will not have backlight bleeding (the photo kinda exaggerates it as it is taken directly from the top and not from an angle as you are seeing it, the max brightness is a bit visible even from angle)
that is due to the location of the led light being in the higher part of the keycap on cherry mx switches and will probably be the same for all cherry mx based keyboards so not much point in trying other model
Quite like the keyboard so far except the bad visibility of localized lettering. Because the keycaps are black the lighting is kinda important to see the lettering.
Thinking of ways to imrpove it.
I have ordered the 40A-L o-ring dampeners from wasd keyboards but when I think about it now since they are not clear/translucent they will probably make the backlighting a little worse as they will partly block the light source getting to the rest of the keycap, so I also ordered some clear ones
I ordered the ones from wasd because they were the only on ebay stating in description the rubber hardness and thickness and 40A-L were the ones I thought I'd like the most. The landing pads are totally out of question for illuminated keyboards as they will completely block the diode
Also I think it would help the light spread around the keycap if the inside of the keycap was not as dark as it is on my keayboard. So I was thinking of some way to improve that. Painting would be a bit dangerous as I don't want the paint to get to the bottom of the keycap, only the sides so it doesn't affect the side where the lettering is but helps spread the light around the whole keycap.
Looked around ebay and the best solution I've found seems to be the vinyl wrap used for cars. It is self adhesive so it will be easy to apply (you just have to cut it to correct shape) and should be possible to remove if needed so I would not make any permanent mods and could revert them in case of needing an RMA.
It is quite cheap (less then $5 incl shipping) so I got both the white and chrome wraps as I am not sure which will reflect the light better, so will test it out. Should be enough for one keyboard easily with some extra for testing and spare.
Was also considering using some glow in the dark o-ring but haven't found them cheap enough to give them a try and they probably won't help that much either. They react nicely to UV lighting and red lighting will probably not make them glow much, maybe to some extent. Surely I but don't want to change the diodes in the keyboard and also the red light combined with green glow would probably make some ugly color (some sources say yellow, some say brown, some say white - either of those would probably not look as good as red,blue,green).
Let me know what is your experience with dampeners and it's effect on backlighting and if you tried to improve the backlighting in the lower part of the keycaps. I am guessing most cherry mx keyboards will have that issue to some extent, unless they are white which could help a bit, but most keyboards using cherry mx are gaming keyboards and are illuminated and black so there should be a lot of you facing the same issues as me.
Hope to hear your ideas. It will take few weeks before the stuff is delivered and I can do some testing but will update the thread with the results of my findings on the subject.
Thanks for reading my long post.
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