Yes, ideally if people don't have a large set of small precision screwdrivers [like we do] an eyeglass screwdriver works best. Most people have those around the house.

The "slot" where the screwdriver inserts is actually very small width wise.

This is great - a learning thread, with outstanding instructions and photos, and no one has called anyone Blue Balls yet. Outstanding.

Sorry couldn't help it. Gotta spice the forum this weekend.

And take note, it might even work on the 8800, too! What color makes Frankenstein keys?

Just colored the leds under the keys. Fairly simple process. If you decide to do this, wear gloves! If you don't, there will likely be some ugly fingerprints on your screen. Follow the instructions on the disassembly faq and then just color the leds the same way as the one under the pearl. Works great. I would post pictures, but the only camera I have is my pearl. It turns the keys a slight blue. I almost want to say it's not as noticeably blue as the pearl is.
Anyway if your going to do this, be careful, go slow, keep everything in order, and wear gloves. Also, if u don't have a T6 screwdriver, then you might be able to use a small eyeglass screwdriver to fit in the screws. or, you can go buy a torx screwdriver for about $10 at Home Depot or similar. (a torx screwdriver has 6 points on it as opposed to a philips head which has 4. hope that makes sense.)
If you're up to it, it's well worth it.

When i go home for spring break i am going to perform this procedure. Until then i am gonna have a blue green pearl and white keys

haha. So yeah, it took me about 10-15 minutes to do this mod, and saw GrayPengiun's post about the full disassembly. Figured, what the hey. So, I took my phone apart, and now all of my white LED's are now Magenta. (I work for T-mobile and thought it'd be funny.) Looks pretty sweet. In about a week or so, I may clean 'em out and go red. . . why? Because red and black just look sweet together.

Thanks San Fran for the fine docs to do this mod. I'm the proud owner of a nice deep blue Pearl, and I cleaned the rollers and pearl while I was at it. Just to mention to those of you unhappy that your pearl isn't sparkling white, coloring the led seems to mask some of the discoloration of the pearl itself. Mine was never snowy white to begin with for some reason, and it had an ugly shade of off-white before I colored the LED. Now, it's a really nice deep-cool blue which I really like.

I must say, though, that I sweated my way through the procedure wondering it I'd still be able to use the trackball after I screwed with it - but all is okey dokey.

Stac

My blue LED trackball has faded to a light blue tint. Not to worry, simply disassembled the trackball and applied another coating of Sharpie.

On close inspection the LED looks like it might not be an LED but is rather some type of other bulb, that possibly generates heat.

I say this because the light does not look like traditional LED bulbs and for the size of the part that actually glows [about the size of a small pinhead] it does not seem that an LED could glow that brightly.

Moreover, the Sharpie ink looked like it had fried due to a heat source, which could only have been the bulb. And to my knowledge, LED bulbs normally don't get that hot, certainly not enough to fry the Sharpie ink.

I could otherwise be off on everything because if you look at the Sharpie on the LED it looks like part of it broke off? Coincidentally in the area where the LED glows? So that is why the ball became a light blue tint?

Anyone know if those trackball lights are actually LEDs or something else?

Just my luck. Hardly used any preasure and ring cracked. It did not come out just cracked at the insertion point.

Anyone have an extra? Probably not...

Anyway for those of you who are planning to attempt this be prepared that there is a possibility something may go wrong. I work with electronics everyday and small fragile components so the skills are there but Sh*t happens.

Great mod instrunctions though and congrats to those who succesfully completed...I am jelous:(

has anyone made the keypad another color yet? I would love to see pics and see how it turned out.. I am thinking about doing it.

One member did it, but he does not want to post pics on how it looks. Says he has no time to do that. It's been a few weeks now.

I had considered doing it but I passed because it looks like a more daunting task, at least in terms of making sure not to break anything. [Mostly the side rail clips and the LCD area].

My keypad had been blue for about a week now. It is harder to notice than the pearl though. You can really only tell in a dark room or at night. I would still recommend doing it since it gives a really nice look at night.

If you decide to do it, be careful and wear gloves. Just follow the disassembly steps and color the keyboard leds the same way as the Pearl led.

I would post pictures, but the only camera I have is my Pearl...

In terms of getting the Pearl apart, I found that it was easiest to get the bottom cover off by first lifting up the battery side with a small screwdriver, and then gently, but firmly, pushing downwards. It will wrap around toward the front and then pop off. Also, putting your fingernail between the sides and the Pearl and slowly moving down will pop them right off without breaking the little piece that holds them in. Once again, be sure to wear gloves because fingerprints on the inside of the screen are very ugly.

I just changed the color of my keypad and the track ball. Its looks GREAT (I will post pics later today when I get home and are able to use my digital cam to take pics).
I do agree that the only time you can really see the color is when its dark, but why would you need to have the light unless its dark anyways?
Also one tip for someone that is thinking about taking your phone apart. I learned this from some of our repair people (I work for Alltel wireless) and they told me to use tape (just any kind with low tack) and tape up your screen and tape up the plastic cover when you take it apart so that lint and other things don’t damage the inside screen. This will also prevent finger prints. But mainly its to save from a hour of lint removal.

take a look here today I took my 8100 apart and put colored tape over the lights.. take a look! I didn't see any other pics of the key pad and track ball. (and I know I know its blue, but thats really the only color I liked, wanted red but it comes out pink )

I originally mentioned using some type of film but opted for the Sharpie because I did not have any blue film, nor any color, around the house.

What kind of film did you use? One of those thin 8 1/2 x 11 acetate sheets?

Can you do me a favor and keep a check on the film in a few days. I am curious what kind of heat is coming from the LED because like I said, my Sharpie ink appears to be "frying." I am wondering if the film will melt.

Anyone else experiencing the heat and fading issue, with the Sharpie ink?

If no one is, then maybe I am putting it on too thick to where it breaks off? See pic in my other post.

Back to the film: how did you adhere it to the LED?

I like the way it turned out.

oh I just used tape and colored it blue.. I had it on the trackball for about a week to test it and it didn't melt or anything so I think that tape is probably a good solution. its sticky and it can really be any color you want it to be, just depending on what color marker you use.

I too am having the fried sharpie ink problem... It started as a nice blue but now, as you have described, it is a faded light blue... It's the second time I've colored over the bulb but i'm not sure i'm going to do it again just in case something goes wrong... I also don't like the idea of popping the ring off every few days to color the bulb.

Nice work, I did this mod in under 7 minutes.

dlane, does the tape any affect on key sensitivity or anything?
Thanks and nice work!

Mine is fading too, I did it about a week ago, I actually was hunting for this thread to see if it was just my imagination that I see my pearl faded blue, as not as blue as the first days, do I have to clean it, I did break the chrome part too, although I was very careful and use the screwdriver for the wife lens, afraid to ask Telcel for replacement or something since their customer service sucks. what would be the next step on the sharpie colored LED?

nope the tape didn't effect anything other then the color. I have to make a few adjustments to the color (there is a purple button for some reason) tonight, so I will take pics of what it looks like taken apart and post them

Awesome write up SF!

Thanks for the contribution and efforts associated with it!

hahaha...

Did anyone have a problem with the trackball not lighting up sometimes after coloring the LED well i am how to fix?

Do you mean that the keypad is lit up but the trackball isn't? In that case, the led might be blown. I have heard that you can order a replacement (it's a 6030 i think), but it would be a very hard solder. Or else, it could be that you are in too much light and the backlight is off. It took me a while to figure out what the threshold was for the backlight, so you might want to experiment a little.

blackberryforums.com/457470-post109.html Here's what I've done to mine. It was pretty easy. Took maybe 10-15 minutes.

Looks good. How was taking apart the phone to get to the keypad?

Christo, thanks for posting the zip file. How do I install this via the Desktop Manager. I unzipped the files and was able to install the Original_Quattro_Theme (ALX file). What do I do with the COD file? I cannot get the theme to work yet.

Thanks!

Please don't use this thread for off-topic conversations or private messages. Thanks.

What do you mean by not lighting up "sometimes?" Can you be more specific.

I suspect GrayPenguin may be right, the "autodim" is working as it should.

Pretty easy. The only thing that was a pain in the ass was getting the bottom off to get to the screws. Once I got that off, it was smooth sailin'.

Thanks for the great post with easy instructions and pics. Im going to go home and try it tonight.

ok I took pics and here you go..

so what I did was I took regular tape and colored it blue with a regular sharpie and then cut them into thin strips, so that it wouldn't touch where the buttons make contact and just taped them in place. I found that using thin strips rather then small pieces made it stay better and I could work with it a lot easier. Also with using the tape I haven't had the issue of the marker frying.
Also, I included a pic of how I kept from getting lint and finger prints on my screen. again I just took normal tape and stuck it to the screen while I was going the work on the phone. this way when you take the tape off any lint of prints that might have gotten on the screen in the little time you have it out will go away when you take the tape off. kind of like one of those fun lint rollers you can get from the grocery.
I hope this helps a out everyone. you know maybe someone should market this idea and sell little pieces of colored tape for this very reason? or maybe make a keypad light cover so its all one piece or something that you can just lay down??

anyways here are the pics hope you enjoy..
100_1971.jpg

100_1970.jpg

100_1967.jpg

i just disassembled my trackball it was 100 percent success.

i didn;t color and leds because i like the white color. followed the steps and it worked! took me 30 minutes because i took apart the trackball part and decided to clean the little ball. mine is slowly turning grey. the trackball doesn't get any whiter than what it is now, so after its startin to turn grey your SOL. I left mine in bleach for 20 minutes and nothing i also scrubbed the shit out of it. still same color.

oh well what can you do? also i took it apart because i found the pearl wasn't clicking down properly i had to force it. also my return button was only working about 20 percent of the time now its perfect.

except what scared me at first is that when i first booted up the phone none of the buttons would work. i waited another 10 seconds and all of them are functional!

if you are wanting a new ball you can order one from these guys:The BlackBerry Repair Shop I ordered a few new pieces for my 8100 (things I knew I would break).

The only thing available at that site is a torx screwdriver and a battery door. Where do you see a trackball available for purchase?

oh sorry you have to email them and then they will email you back with the part number and a number to call. Sorry forgot about that part. They have "limited supply" so they don't have everything they have online.

Are they new parts? I tried getting 7100 keyboards from a couple of places a while back and all they had were used.

It would be nice to have a place to get new replacement trackballs.

Yeah when I talked to the guy he said they were all new part

Let the mad rush to the website begin.