I'm considering buying a Legend, and as an owner of an original Deck have a few questions:

1. Have any review samples been sent out? I'd love to see Dan's Data review the Legend, as his original Deck review was instrumental in my purchase.

2. Is the bottom of the Legend a big metal plate like the original?

3. Is the housing made out of the same really tough plastic, or has that changed?

4. Can we get some better pictures of the Legend? I remember a post saying that all of the non-blue pics were photoshopped versions of the Ice Legend. Since there's no reviews out (that I know of), it would be nice to see a few different angles.

5. Is the Legend in stock? Like if I ordered soon, would I get it before Christmas?

Thanks, and keep up the great work Deck team!

All good questions Mterlouw.
1. reviews - no we have not had enough to send out yet. They are shipping as fast as we make them. We plan to get reviews out at the start of Jan.

2 & 3. No metal plate on this on. The top and bottom are make of tuff plastic.

4. good idea - I'll have Adam work on getting more pics. Someone else may want to see them also.

5. Yes we do have material to build the keyboards. We are building the keyboards each day, but the are shipping just as fast.

thanks
Deck Mgr.

I just took a few quick shots of the different colors.

TOXIC

TOXIC

TOXIC


FIRE with the CAP'S LOCK, NUM LOCK and SCROLL LOCK OFF


FIRE with the CAP'S LOCK, NUM LOCK and SCROLL LOCK ON





GOLD

Thanks for the response guys! The gold one sure looks nice, but the red one would probably be easier on the eyes. Decisions, decisions...

thank you I had already ordered gold, but this makes me quite happy I did. I like blue and green LEDs, but not quite so many of them, and red was too angry for me.

Hey i just noticed something about those pics.. Look at the toxic, the DEL key is not lit on the number pad, whats up with that?

another thing i noticed, why does the gold version in the pics show almost no light leakage then the fire and toxic?

It's mostly the way the camera picks up the light from the different colors. As far as the DEL key not being lit - it is lit, but again its pretty much the way the camera interprets the lighting. In person it looks similar to the pictures but better in my opinion because of the difference with the camera.

Adam, are y'all pulsing the LEDs to lower current requirements? If so, stop down the aperature and choose a slower shutter speed. What I think is happening is since the LEDs are not illuminated all the time, that the shutter speed too fast and catching one or more LEDs while in their off cycle (or going on or off).

That brings up a good point, i hope all the LEDs in a deck keyboard have direct current running through them not alternating current. When you put AC current through an LED it flickers on and off very quickly, almost beyond our sight but my eyes can see it. If you look at an LED with AC current running through it and you dart your eyes around while looking at it, you can see the LED dot flickering, if you look at an LED with DC current running through it, it is always on and will have a smooth streak when you dart your eyes around. That is what you want.
However i dont think that is what is happening with the photos on this topic. I am a photo major and AC current alternates way too fast for a normal shutter speed to capture an LED in an on or off state. And if you look at the toxic photo with the room lights on and off the Del. key is not lit, so if Max reads this post id like to ask him about that.

The LED's brightness seems to be done by using PWMed pulses. I had to replace my Deck Ice w/ a Legend Fire for that reason, on very low light settings the flickering of the Ice irritates the heck out of me. I'm fine w/ the Fire.

Hmm, so when the backlight is set to a dimmer setting, it flickers? I dont like the sound of that...

Deck is currently running DC current through the LEDs to backlight our keyboards - this is true even at the lowest brightness levels.

PWM is pulse width modulation. If LEDs are turned on and off at a rate greater than about 60 times per second, the human eye can not detect the fact that the LEDs are turned off. The eye just perceives this as dimmer light.

In the future, we may use PWM to dim the LEDs on certain models, but we are not currently using PWM.

Grendel and clayborn777,

As deckAdmin said, our keyboard run DC, and do not flicker in the sense that your eye could be quick enough to ever pick it up unless you are Superman. If you keyboard is flickering you should contact technicalsupport@deckkeyboards.com to arrange for a return because you have a problem we have never encountered yet. I would be surprised if that is the case but you never know until seeing it firsthand.

To clarify that -- I only see the flicker in very low light w/ brightness settings < 3 (so it won't distract from the monitor picture), looking at the monitor over the keyboard. I don't see it looking at the keyboard. The retina is more sensitive to movement (or flicker) on the outside (that's why you see movements easier "in the corner of the eye") plus blue is a "strong" color. It's very irritating, I had to turn the lights off w/ the Ice under those conditions. I'd bet that the LED's are PWM driven (at something < 120Hz), if that's not the case I could only expalin the effect if you guys have a switching voltage regulator and a capacitor either broke or is dimensioned to small.

I'm kind of reluctant to send it back, I thought of the effect as rooted in the design. Please double check w/ your EE if the board behavour is errornous for sure. I'll try to hook up a scope to an LED later this evening, letting you know the result.