|
Home > Archive > Electrical Engineering > January 2007 > led belt buckle hack
You are viewing an archived Text-only version of the thread.
To view this thread in it's original format and/or if you want to reply to
this thread please [click here]
| Author |
led belt buckle hack
|
|
| NetKev 2007-01-15, 3:25 am |
| Bought one of those LED belt buckles...not to wear! I want to hook it
up to a serial line and control it from a pc. My hope was that there
were some dev points on the board that I could tap into. Looks like
there's only 1 and it's got 5 solder points. I'm not sure if this was
for power or control or both as I'm not an EE guy, just CS; but I do
like to play around with electronics. Also, there's an atmel eprom
24C16AN (http://www.turbochip.dk/shop/produkt.asp?id=48) exposed. The
largest chip has some black goop on it(epoxy?) for some reason. Maybe
for "hack" protection like the xbox360 chips?
Last resort I guess I could desolder the 3 programming buttons and
write something to use the button interface but that would be pretty
ugly since programming this thing with the buttons is painful. You
have to basically do it 1 char at a time by scrolling through the
upper/lower alphabet.
I posted some pictures here of the back. The front is just a block of
LEDs in a 7x21 row x column pattern.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewil...0059341/detail/
Any help would be appreciated.
-kevin
| |
| Palindr☻me 2007-01-15, 9:25 am |
| NetKev wrote:
> Bought one of those LED belt buckles...not to wear! I want to hook it
> up to a serial line and control it from a pc. My hope was that there
> were some dev points on the board that I could tap into. Looks like
> there's only 1 and it's got 5 solder points. I'm not sure if this was
> for power or control or both as I'm not an EE guy, just CS; but I do
> like to play around with electronics. Also, there's an atmel eprom
> 24C16AN (http://www.turbochip.dk/shop/produkt.asp?id=48) exposed. The
> largest chip has some black goop on it(epoxy?) for some reason. Maybe
> for "hack" protection like the xbox360 chips?
>
> Last resort I guess I could desolder the 3 programming buttons and
> write something to use the button interface but that would be pretty
> ugly since programming this thing with the buttons is painful. You
> have to basically do it 1 char at a time by scrolling through the
> upper/lower alphabet.
>
> I posted some pictures here of the back. The front is just a block of
> LEDs in a 7x21 row x column pattern.
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/thewil...0059341/detail/
>
The EPROM is probably the character set - so that different variants for
different languages can be produced by a single chip change.
The switches will be software de-bounced, so that will limit the
"programming" speed that can be achieved.
There may be a test point that puts a test pattern on the LEDS (say, all
on) but it almost certainly won't be of much use to you.
The LED column driver transistors are clearly visible and accessible on
the left.
Your options are either to:
1) Isolate the LED row lines and the column transistor base lines and
add your own PIC to drive those and interface to your serial line.
Almost certainly not that difficult to do, if you use a re-programmable
PIC to build things up "bit by bit".
or
2) As you suggest - but I would use three lines from a parallel port,
rather than the serial port.
It wouldn't be that much a pain to program (2) - computers don't mind
simple repetitive tasks!
--
Sue
| |
| NetKev 2007-01-16, 3:25 am |
| Are you sure those transistors are not for the rows? Looking closer at
the board there are Q1-Q7 and R1-R7. There are exactly 7 rows and 21
columns. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just desolder the
LEDs? I priced them online and they cost over $1 each. This device
with 147 LEDs cost me $10.
-Kevin
Palindr=E2=98=BBme wrote:
> NetKev wrote:
etail/[color=darkred]
>
> The EPROM is probably the character set - so that different variants for
> different languages can be produced by a single chip change.
>
> The switches will be software de-bounced, so that will limit the
> "programming" speed that can be achieved.
>
> There may be a test point that puts a test pattern on the LEDS (say, all
> on) but it almost certainly won't be of much use to you.
>
> The LED column driver transistors are clearly visible and accessible on
> the left.
>
> Your options are either to:
>
> 1) Isolate the LED row lines and the column transistor base lines and
> add your own PIC to drive those and interface to your serial line.
> Almost certainly not that difficult to do, if you use a re-programmable
> PIC to build things up "bit by bit".
>
> or
>
> 2) As you suggest - but I would use three lines from a parallel port,
> rather than the serial port.
>
>
> It wouldn't be that much a pain to program (2) - computers don't mind
> simple repetitive tasks!
>=20
>=20
> --=20
> Sue
| |
|
| NetKev wrote:
> Are you sure those transistors are not for the rows? Looking closer at
> the board there are Q1-Q7 and R1-R7. There are exactly 7 rows and 21
> columns. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just desolder the
> LEDs? I priced them online and they cost over $1 each. This device
> with 147 LEDs cost me $10.
>
Where did you get it?
Ed
> -Kevin
>
| |
| Palindr☻me 2007-01-18, 3:25 am |
| NetKev wrote:
> Are you sure those transistors are not for the rows?
LOL, it was a guess as to what the front of the buckle looked like!
> Looking closer at
> the board there are Q1-Q7 and R1-R7. There are exactly 7 rows and 21
> columns.
Well, there you go. The key thing is that it is a matrix, with X and Y
lines.
> I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to just desolder the
> LEDs? I priced them online and they cost over $1 each. This device
> with 147 LEDs cost me $10.
At the moment you have the LEDs already soldered on to a board, with the
driver transistors in place and (it looks like) all the X and Y lines
accessible. Cutting those lines and taking 21+7 fine wire (I use
Verowire - its insulation turns to flux as it is heated with an iron) to
a piggyback board with a PIC or two on it and it's done. These are,
presumably, SMT LEDs - unsoldering them is going to be easy (just put a
hot air gun to the back and tap against the bench and they will all fall
off). It's making a board and soldering them all back on, the right way
around, that is going to take time...
--
Sue
| |
| NetKev 2007-01-18, 8:25 pm |
| ehsjr wrote:
> NetKev wrote:
>
> Where did you get it?
> Ed
I bought it when I saw the deal on dealspl.us and it was $9.99 + free
shipping. It looks like they've since raised the price but it's still
cheaper than buying wholesale smt leds.
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7c60/
| |
| NetKev 2007-01-18, 8:25 pm |
| Palindr=E2=98=BBme wrote:
> NetKev wrote:
>
> LOL, it was a guess as to what the front of the buckle looked like!
>
>
> Well, there you go. The key thing is that it is a matrix, with X and Y
> lines.
>
>
> At the moment you have the LEDs already soldered on to a board, with the
> driver transistors in place and (it looks like) all the X and Y lines
> accessible. Cutting those lines and taking 21+7 fine wire (I use
> Verowire - its insulation turns to flux as it is heated with an iron) to
> a piggyback board with a PIC or two on it and it's done. These are,
> presumably, SMT LEDs - unsoldering them is going to be easy (just put a
> hot air gun to the back and tap against the bench and they will all fall
> off). It's making a board and soldering them all back on, the right way
> around, that is going to take time...
>
> --
> Sue
if i wanted to leave it in tact, what's the best way to interface with
the printed lines? ...and figuring out how they are picking which leds
turn on.
-Kevin
| |
| Palindr☻me 2007-01-19, 9:25 am |
| NetKev wrote:
> Palindr☻me wrote:
>
>
>
> if i wanted to leave it in tact, what's the best way to interface with
> the printed lines? ...and figuring out how they are picking which leds
> turn on.
You're in luck..
The lines going to the base of the driver transistors will be easy to
locate - just trace back from the base pins.
The 21 other lines all have to go through plated-through holes from the
LED side to the "electronics" side - count the number of such holes and
I wouldn't expect, for a simple circuit like this, to be more that the
21+7 needed for the LEDs - and those 7 extra are going to be very easy
to identify.
Also, the holes are an ideal spot to /gently/ remove the coating and
expose bare copper to solder to. I use a thing called a "fibre-glass
pencil" to do this.
Then, as I have said, I would use Verowire to make the links.
Working out which is which - just do a continuity test (ohms on a
multimeter) from the pins of an LED from each column and each row back
to the wires coming off the board. Then label them.
--
Sue
| |
|
| NetKev wrote:
> ehsjr wrote:
>
>
>
> I bought it when I saw the deal on dealspl.us and it was $9.99 + free
> shipping. It looks like they've since raised the price but it's still
> cheaper than buying wholesale smt leds.
> http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7c60/
>
Thanks!
Ed
|
|
|
|
|