A manufacturer of industrial, military, and marine keyboards contacted Fiberoptic to develop a Uni-Glo fiberoptic backlight assembly to replace an Electro-Luminescent (EL) backlight.

Due to the many harsh enviroments these keyboards were used in, the EL backlight did not provide adequate life for its end customers, along with the emission of EMI (noise).  Depending on the color, EL life only offered 1,500 to 3,000 hours and it also required an expensive filter to block the EMI interference from the EL inverter.

One of the design challenges we faced was the ability to backlight the entire keyboard along with the icons that surrounded the keyboard trackball with only two (5), LEDs.  This was ultimately accomplished due to the design flexibility of the Uni-Gl Technology, along with the development of the Bendi, fiber bending process.

The Uniglo Technology was also selected due to the extreme thinness of the panel , which also allowed a very smooth tactile response through the overlay and aluminum, membrane switch domes.  The 5mm LEDs provided 50K hours of life and because the fiberoptic backlight is totally inert, the backlight assembly did require any filtering.

Key Reasons our Woven and UniGlo Fiber Optic Panels Technology was selected

1. Life
2. No filtering or inverter required
3. Thinness – Tactile Response
4. Uniformity – light output
5. Utilizing (2) LEDs – Power Consumption