Keybow mini no light show on boot

Hi there, got a keybow mini last week, assembled using a Pi Zero, known working, green led flashes then lights up then stays on. Keyboard never flashes, plugged directly into USB3 port on laptop, Windows 10 fails to detect the HID device and Device Mangler reports unable to recognise device. microSD card rewritten using Ubuntu disk utility, twice. Swapped to Pi Zero W, also known good, both Pi’s boot to keybow login with a monitor attached. Used cable as supplied in the box, no different to another cable. Pi booted without microSD card is found by windows as a broadcom boot device.
Puzzled. Figured out the assembly instructions as they are not the same as the full sized Keybow.

The Boot partition has to be Fat for the Pi to boot from it. I’d try the Pi Foundation Official Imager Utility.
Raspberry Pi OS – Raspberry Pi

When you run the utility just select “use custom” and point it to the keybow image.
I use this method to flash Motion Eye OS to my cards.

I’ve used the RPi Imager quite a bit, installed on Ubuntu laptops, and I’m delighted to say your suggestion worked, no idea why, I now have glowing keys and its been properly recognised as a HID device.

Playtime, I want to link it to a MQTT / python program to make an ‘ON AIR’ box light up when I’m on a conf call, inspired by the Do Not Disturb article in MagPi issue 103. I’ve been using MQTT for years and it powers my desk clock - a four letter Phat which alternates between the temperature outside and the time - the temperature sensor is wired to another Pi which should be part of my weather station.

THANK YOU for the suggestion, if in doubt always use the Imager. :-)

Best guess is the other imager set it up just fine for any other Linux device, just not exactly what the Pi was looking for.
Anyway, now you can have some fun tinkering with it.

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