Description (English)

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At February, 24th, 2004, I modified this English Description page.

Introduction.
I am a good-old Apple user in Japan. From the Apple IIe to this iBook and PowerBookG4-15inch, I used several computers manufactured by Apple Computer Inc. I belong to Hokkaido Macintosh Users' Group from 12 years ago. The Swiki site of HMUG activities can be seen here. Thanks to kindly friendships between HMUG members, I could always enjoy operating and also modifying my Macs for such a long time. If I had not exchanged so much e-mails in the middle of the night with HMUG members, I should have never imagined to illuminate my iBook's keyboard. So, many thanks.

Now, iBook users, please look at your machine closely. You can see keytops of the iBook are arranged keeping less than 1 mm distance with each other. My modification is to illuminate keyboard using plastic optical fiber laid between keytops. It was clear that there is no room for the 0.75 mm diameter fiber to be set there. I also found it very hard to pass fibers under keytops, because keytops are completely attached to the keyboard base when pressed. So, I chose the 0.5 mm diameter optical fiber to run horizontally on the keyboard. Keytops of the iBook are made of white transparent plastic so that the light derived from the optic fiber can be passed through them, to make keytops glow in the dark.

To start with this modification, I preferred these points.
  1. Soldering on the main board or anywhere inside iBook is avoided. The mod should be removable.
  2. The type-feel of the keyboard should never be abolished.
  3. It should comsume as less battery power as possible.
These goals were cleared completely, I guess.

Materials.
Both of the LED and the plastic optical fibers may be hard to find. I bought both in japanese online shop but I have no further information then written below about how to buy them outside Japan. If you have successfully purchased these parts, I appreciate the information.

1. One white LED (light-emitting diode), 10,000 mCD (mili candela) , OSWT511A, OptoSupply, HongKong. I bought this from Akizuki Densh online shop, Tokyo, Japan. 5 mm in diameter, 150 yen.
If you want a Blue illumination, I recommend the true blue LED, NSPB500S manufactured by Nichia corporation, Japan. This is 3460 mCD, 5mm in diameter. I bought this from Wakamatsu Tsusho online shop, Tokyo, Japan. If you are outside Japan, how about asking thelight.com or radioshack in US ?

More colors can be selected. Also, in the near future, more brighter LED will be released. If it is 3 to 5 mm diameter, it will suit behind the keyboard.

2. Five two-feet plastic optical fibers (POFs), 0.5mm in diameter, named Esca, CK20E, Mitsubishi Rayon, Japan. I bought it at Tokyu Hands, Sapporo, Japan. 1,550 yen in 100 meter reel. If you are outside Japan, 0.5mm diameter plastic optical fiber named 'ESKA' is found here (OPT FIBER UNJACKET 500uM).

3. Mini grinder / drill / router / engraver. What I have is cheap small hobby grinder, which resembles to these . I bought it at DIY store at the price of 3000 yen. This kind of glinder is used commonly for carving small wood crafts, glasses, stones and metals. The tip of the glinder is exchangeable and called as 'bit'. You can see superior one, MICROMOT 40 or 50, at this site, though the original Proxxon site cannot be viewed by Safari 1.2. Since the tip of the drill slips against the smooth plastic surface of the LED, I recommend using diamond files ; file means a tool which scrapes something, which is a little expensive but suitable for fine carving. You should find the one with a thin, less than 1.5 mm diameter, file and a small ball file. What I have resembles to those shown in this page. No. MB1768 Three Diamond Engraving Bits, All 1.0mm dia. $14.95.

4. Adhesive. Clear epoxy bond ( to attach fibers to the LED ), Exel Epo, Cemedine, Japan. I bought it at Tokyu Hands, Sapporo. Quick curing adhensive, such as Aron Alpha, is not suitable because is not clear after curing. Epoxy bond for glass, such as Super ceramik will do.

5. One small 56 ohm ( or a little higher ) resister.
6. One small connector or socket (to insert LED's two legs).
7. Some thin lead wires ( for electric circuit connections).
8. Thin plastic tape ( for fixing fibers in the surface of keyboard. Thinner is better).
9. Vinyl tape ( to fix resisters and LED.)
10. Soldering kit ( 10 - 20W, for electric circuit including IC and transistor).
11. iBook ( Dual USB or later). I don't know this mod is applicable to iBook G4. Please try.
That's all.

Methods.

1. Light the LED.

I draw the power of LED branched from the power line of LCD ( Liquid crystal Display) who runs below the memory module cover that is located under the Airport card. So, the illumination of keyboard is synchronized with LCD. It goes off when LCD sleeps. The power cunsumption of LED is only 20 to 25mA, while the 2.5 inch IBM Hard disk consumes 1,000mA at spin up, 170 mA in low-power idle mode, and 20 mA even in sleep. So, I don't care for the 25mA used by the illumination. If you come to need full battery power, you can turn off the illumination anytime by moving the LED from its socket explained below

Examining the power line connector, you can see two colored lead lines, brown (+5V), Black (Ground = 0V). One leg of the LED (anode) is connected to the 56-ohm resister via the socket. Another leg is tied to 0V. Thin lead wire is used in order to draw power from the LCD power connector. That wires should be carefully inserted from upper side of the connectors hole. In order to distinguish two lead wires, red wire inserted into 5V line's hole, while black one into 0V hole. It is critical point to avoid bridging between 5V and 0V while you are inserting thin lead lines. Be careful.

   [anode of LED] ----[socket]----[resister]---[thin red lead wire]---[+5V, brown]
   [cathode of LED] --[socket]-----------------[thin black lead wire]---[0V, black]

After inserting thin wires, cover them by vynyl tape or something in order to fix wires to the main board. If you have no socket you can omit it. But, usage of a socket is recommendable.

Shall we talk about the value of resister? A leaflet made by Akizuki Denshi told me such characteristics of the LED I chose; It has absolute maximum DC forward current of 25 mA and typical DC forward voltage of 3.6V (at 20 mA). If I use 56 ohm resister with LED in line and connected to 5V, the forward currect should be near 25 mA. If you change the LED, you can use 30 to 100 ohm resister instead. But you should better calculate the current. If you measure, by a voltage tester, the voltage between both ends of the resister, you can calculate the current (Ampare) by deviding that voltage (V) by the value of the resister (Ohm). Because the LED is tied in parallel with this resister, the same current flows inside the LED. Make sure the current doesn't go over the absolute maximum DC forward current of that LED.

(Tip) I think you may want to change the light levels of illumination. If so, you may use the orange line of the LCD power connector. The orange line has 0 - 3.6V voltage reguration which is used for the control of LCD brightness ( I found it). I found 3.6V is not enough for the LED to illuminate very brightly but if you locate a switching transistor, i.e, 2SC1815, inbetween the orange line to the LED, you can regurate the keyboard illumination level by the light control keys on the keyboard.

   [anode of LED] ----[socket]----[56 ohm resister]---[thin red lead wire]---[+5V, brown]
   [cathode of LED] --[socket]----[collecter of 2SC1815]
   [emitter of 2SC1815] ------------------------------------------------------------[0V, black]
   [base of 2SC1815]---[1 kilo ohm resister]------------[reguration line, 0 - 3.6V, orange]

(End of this tip)

2. Attach optical fibers to the LED.

The structure of light system is very simple. Five plactic optical fibers (POFs) are tied by a string or a bond, and attached to the LED by clear epoxy bond. To attach fivers with LED, You should drill the LED in its top; A 1.5 mm-diameter small hole should be made which reaches very close to the light source of the LED, because the lens structure of the LED is useless for this modification. Do you understand what 'light source' mean ? The core of every LED is small flat structure which includes the diode. As far as I observed, this light source is not a small point but a flat circle (or square ?). This is the light source. The LED suitable for this modification should have an area of light source wide enough to deliver the same amount of light to all five fibers.

The cutting edges of POFs should be as flat and clean as possible. Fibers are inserted into the hole but please make sure all the fibers light up in the same manner. I mean, the tip of fibers should be reached to the bottom of the hole in order to close to the light source. So, you'd better put the LED 'ON' while bonding POFs to the LED. If you find one dark fiber unfortunately, you should cut all fibers and try again from drilling the hole and cleaning the fibers. If you find one brightest fiber it should be the center one. The center fiber is inevitably brighter than the others if the surface of the light source is narrow. It it is the case, don't mind. Because when scratching fiber lights are dispersed in 10 or so light points and also you can diminish the light by covering the other edge of the POF with something like a paint which shield the light. On the other hand, dark fiber is not recoverable afterwards.

3. Draw fibers from behind the keyboard to the surface.

The electric circuit should be located at the side of the AirPort card behind the keyboard, although the POFs should be at the opposite side; keyboard surface.

Optical fibers are passed around the right-side very-thin-space of the keyboard. Its width is 0.5mm or so. But because you cannot bend the fiber which causes the light loss, you should bend the fiber gently. I cannot explain this by words, so please see the pictures on this site. You may find one picture of lighting fibers at the back side of the keyboard. This is it. Be carefull so that the fibers are bent in round shape. If plastic optical fiber is bent with an angle or a sharp curve, the light is lost from there. Also, if the fiber is scraped by the alminum base of the keyboard, the light should be leaked. I recommend covering the right side of keyboard's alminum base with plastic tape in order to avoid scratching fibers. Also turning on the LED when handling the fiber to find if you bent the fiber so much.

(Tips) Bending the fiber is very critical. But because the POF itself has elasticity, it won't easily break. You should take care about the scratch instead. Even if you taped the alminum edge by thin plastic tape, the tape is easily torn. One solution is cuttung the aluminum edge by 1 mm or so. But I am afraid this operation cause the alminum base bent, to spoil the touch of the keyboard. Another solution is using vynyl paint on the fibers. If using white vynyl paint, it guards from the scratch and also shatters the leak of light from the bent. You may see my white iBook and the blue iBook on my site. My first modification is the white one, on which you can see the obvious light leaks at the side of the keyboard. Compared to it, the blue illumination has less leaks. If you are impressed that the white one (10,000 mCD) is not so much brighter than the blue one (3460 mCD), you are correct. I think the unnecessary scratches and immature techniques for bonding between the fiber and the LED differs the finishes of the two. So take care. (End)

4. Fix optical fibers and scratch at last.

Fibers should be fixed between the key-tops to the whilte plastic sheet layed upon the alminum base with using plastic tape. After fixing all, you can substitute tapes by epoxy bond, though It seems I don't need it after an year usage. Good taping is better because you may want to remove the illumination some day.

You may know that the optical fiber itself will not glow without a scratch. The optical fiber brings the light from one end to another. If we make scratch at surface of the fiber some amount of light is leaked from the scratch. Final critical point for this modification is here. You have to make 10 or so scratches on each fiber in order to light the center of each keytops. It requires good technique to light total points samely, because if with too many or too big scratch, the light will never reach to the end of the fiber.Scratch is made easy by the grinder with a fine file written above. In order not to make mistake, you have to make scratch from upper stream of the light to the lower, one by one, carefully looking at the intense of each light point (derived from scratches). Surely you have to turn the illumination ON and remove the keytops before scratching.

After scratching, you should place keytops and use a while in order to make plastic tapes stick tightly. I hope you understand these procedures.

That's all, folks.

I know the Apple PowerBook's keyboard illumination structure is consisted of hundreds of thin POFs and one (?) white LED. Their approach is to light all areas behind the keyboard and to make light leaked from behind. They light up letters on keytops and also enhance the square edges of each keytops. But, fair amount of light is wasted behind the keytops. My approach is a little different. I use least number of POFs and one strong LED. This method costs less and applicable to many computer keyboards. EL panels nor novel POF product is not needed.

Please feel free to send e-mail to me. I will read every mail, but because I am too busy and am not good at English, the response to your mail may be very late or maybe lost. Sorry for that. If you find typo or miswriting, I hope you kindly tell me. Thanks.