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Today I am going to show you my latest creation -
this working computer keyboard built entirely, uh, mostly
out of LEGO bricks.
Before I disconnect it from the computer to show you how it's built, I just wanted to
show you the working light indicators.
Num Lock, Scroll Lock, and Caps Lock.
So, what exactly is going on here.
We'll start by looking at the insides.
And here we see the original keyboard components. I started out with a generic, run of the mill,
computer keyboard, and this is what's inside of it.
The sensor pad, circuit board, and of course the computer cable.
These are all sitting in a pretty basic LEGO frame, it's just built of basic plates and
tiles.
The biggest challenge with this project was to interface the LEGO keys with the sensor pad,
and in order to do that I built this big grid of Technic axles,
which floats above the sensor pad, and allows the keys to rest on it.
I have a smaller scale model of the grid here, just to show you how it works.
It's basically just a set of Technic axles that are connected together and in this way
each row and key can be precisely positioned over the grid by sliding the connectors
along the axles.
Each key is made up of a couple of Technic axles that slide through each of these Technic connectors,
with some plates on top and then the printed tiles representing the key.
For the keyboard symbols I decided I wasn't going to use any custom printed tiles or stickers.
I'm only using printed tiles that LEGO has officially released over the years.
As a result I had to get pretty creative with some of the keys.
The home key for example is a sloped roof peak that you would put on the roof of a house.
Scroll Lock is a printed tile of a scroll.
Print Screen is a printed tile of fingerprints.
A control panel for the CTRL key.
A Windows computer screen for the Windows key.
I'm using the old M-Tron logo for the letter M.
And for CAPS Lock I'm actually using a minifig baseball cap with a lock tile.
For the home keys I'm actually using one of these one by two plates with a stud on it
as well so you have that tactile feedback where the home keys are,
and the number five on the number pad.
The keys can also be easily replaced, so if LEGO ever comes out with more appropriate
tiles for some of the keys I can just swap them in quite easily.
Well that's about it, as you saw at the beginning of the video it works just as you would expect.
I haven't encountered any problems with it yet.
If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.
Thanks for watching, keep on building and we'll see you next time.