Frustrated with Keyboard mod...looking for alternatives

OK guys, spend a long hard day inserting a walmart blue EL strip into my natural keyboard and after much hard work found out that my spacebar doesn't work like it used to. I've tried everything to get it to work normal short of taking the keyboard apart again. I can pop off the spacebar and get it back on but no matter how I adjust it my spacebar keeps mis-firing and its driving me to insanity. The problem is it looks damn cool (see pics). So I guess my next move is to find a keyboard of sorts that has any lighting stock from the factory. Does such a thing exist? If I can find the time and energy to rip this thing apartagain (with all of its 20 screws to unscrew) I might see if the sensor pad underneith isn't seededright. <sigh> so frustratedcause it looks socool and works sopoorly

Your pics aint working, I want to see I want to see!

Keyboards get ruined easily, however the one I have is just invincible, I split coke at least 10 times all over it...

Why not do some fan mods w/ the leds. Have you like made a window on the case, perhaps the top?

pics fixed for now... only god knows why my winxp IIS5.0 server will run for a few days/hours then just stop working.... ****es me off... that crap never happened on my old win2k iis servers...

thats a nice mod, where did you stick the light to make it fit?

Wow, that's crazy. At night it must make your keys look like they're floating. You could bring that to a LAN Party ya know, but then you would have to avoid the space bar.

for this particular model keyboard I had to pry each and every single key out of its socket to get to the groves where I could lay the EL cable such that it wouldn't interfere with the other keys. I used hot glue every few inches to secure the strip and it worked great!!! EDIT: even though it took 8 hard diligent hours of work to do perfectly...

if only my spacebar worked better :-(

no lan parties around here, that must be a silicon valley thing. I never even heard of lan parties till I started reading these posts a few months ago....

is it in the way of the contact or the actual spacebar? Maybe if you can cut groves in the bottom of the spacebar so it has clearence? Or try just sanding down the backside so its thinner.

Spacebars and other long keys such as shift or enter, usualy have a metal bar that runs the length of the key and fits into a slot or some tabs in the base of the keyboard. this metal bar keeps the entire space bar moving when u push it, instead of just the end you pushed on from going down. check to make sure this is working properly.

yeah, thanks IRON HAWK, the first time I plugged in my spacebar is barely even worked. I popped it off and fixed the metal bar which was shifted to one side. If I keep my thumb in the middle the spacebar it works really nicely. But as soon as I move my thumbs out to the side it starts to misfire. The metal bar is seeded properly this time too... I just don't get it...

I would say take it apart and trim the bottom of the EL off, so that its not under the spacebar at all. Then again, maybe its not the mod at all, it could be just that it didnt go back together right.

So you say you got them at walmart huh, how much, may have to look into it.

$16 at Walmart... little solder, little molex connector, done...

nah, its not the EL in the way, I just think the contact sheets underneith aren't seeded right. I just don't have the energy to tear it apart. Maybe this weekend...

Fix the spacebar... that mod is way too cool to remove. Good luck fixing it.