At the first test, I discovered that the transceiver come with a couple of IR leds. I have to glue each IR led in front of each part of your equipment I want to drive. For me, the cable receiver, the DVD, the Dvico, and the AV amp .. I tried this, but that’s a mess, each led is soldered on a single string, and tend to move. Not really a nice experience. This is simple to crappy to be use.

I decided to mod it to be able to use a single IR led, with a better gain. The first step is to find the right place to place my mod. Just open the transceiver, locate the power supply (Vcc/Gnd) and the IR transistor. I was quite easy, the only trick is to solder the wire for the IR transistor just before the base resistor. Here is the result.

You can find a better pix, in the gallery. I used a scope to find the IR transistor, but this can be done without.

Let’s build a simple IR booster, that’s connect to this pins, and everything will be fine. I used an common BC547 but any common transistor will do the job.

The result :

As you can see, this is small. I placed this near my cable receiver and every is working nicely. I can now control every equipment (cable, DVD, Dvico) for my room without any lag, or IR lost signal.

I managed to fix this cheap video sender without to much effort, I’m happy. This kind of hack can be used in a couple video sender device. The hardest part is to find the IR transistor, the rest is simply the same.

Enjoy TV from bed ;)

I already talk to my friend Bernt about this. He says he already used a cheap gas hot air gun with good result. Ok, he isn’t really an hobbist, and have a professional soldering station at work, but …

Tomorrow morning, he was waiting for me at my work, and gave me a gas hot air gun (plus additional soldering tip) ..what a great a present ! Thank you guy. In fact, they just started to sell this cheap stuff on their shop: Splashelec.

Fine, so it’s time to give it a try no ?

Hum, guess what, I don’t have any electronic flux at home. In fact this cost too much too ! (and you can’t stock it for a long time..) but I have some plumber paste on my desk. I use this stuff for wifi antenna not electronic but it should be fine.

Simply apply the paste with a brush and use the iron to melt it a bit. As I’m new to hot air soldering, I decided to use a normal iron to do that. Next step remove the surplus with some water. In fact, you can use a normal solder here, but using the paste is a bit easier to apply …

Ok ready to play ! Fire !

And the final step, place the chip on the board. Mount the heat blower on the gun and light it. Set it around the max temperature, and gently approach the chip pins. Don’t be afraid to take your time, chips are made for a reflow process, so they can handle hot air without too much issue.

Here’s the result

Fine no ? ;) The soldering is quite perfect, it’s my first time with an hot air soldering gun so.. but I’m really happy. It’s really easier than a normal soldering iron.

I decided to open this little key, to look closely. After a quick look, I didn’t find anything. So this little PCB stuff was laying on me desk, and people play with it. After a couple of weeks, I discover the memory chip is simply de-solder. My friend at work play so much with it, the failure is now apparent. Nice no ?

Hum, this little TQFN chip will be hard to solder, that’s right. But this is do-able no ? I tried this with a small soldering iron and here the result:

And yes, the key works fine right now ;) That’s fine no ? I definitively won’t trust this drive enought to store important document, but fine for a couple of mp3, or other..

My first thought was to use the avrlib, so I wired the LCD and started to use avrlib, but I quickly run into issues. In fact, I want to use some icons on, and the avrlib seems to be buggy.

After a little compile/test/run/compile, I remember an old post on a website about KS108 chips. I find it back, it’s on the science prog

This is really great, you can build some custom fonts easily (that’s exactly what i’m looking for)..

Here a couple of pics…

As you can see, I use a ATMega32 (on a futurelec card), a simple pot for the contrast, and the lumex.

I can use a mix of different fonts on the same screen.

And I can even display some pics too :)

Here the famous tux.

I still have to deal with menu and other stuff, this should be a little harder than expected, but will be nice. If somebody know a good library to use on a T6963C, please post a comment..

For users who wants high res pics, you can find them in my gallery (as usual).

I had a lot of stuffs on the way right now, so I hope to have the time to finish them before going on holidays here a little list:

• A subwoofer (with a big 12″ woofer that goes damn low !
• A subwoofer amp, this is the most hardest part, cause I need to build a mixer, a bandwith filter, and something like a 100W amp.
• Finish a little test with my AVR32 (more to come on this way soon)
• Repair my current HIFI system (restore some HP, even if I bought a low cost one to wait)
• Start my new tube amp (sitll waiting for some big inductors ..)

So, I think i will be busy on my holidays :)

Perhaps, I will re-do this website design too, cause I want re-order some stuff, change the color scheme (cause borring right now) …

After a little googling, I found there is 3 ways to fixe this kind of issue:

• Use a Jtag (as it doesn’t need a clocked micro)
• Use a high voltage programmer (you can erase the fuse, with a programmer that do a parallel programming with RESET plug to a 12v PSU). This kind of programmer aren’t really easy to find. The only one I know right now is the STK500
• Use an external clock (This is what I used, and describe here)

As, I don’t have any Jtag, or STK500, the only way to fix that is to use an external clock. In fact, I decided to ask on the #avr channel on freenode. And a really kool guy (“rue_mohr”) give me this tips. On every AVR micro, you can use a external clock if you messed the fuses settings. Simply plug a external clock on the clock pin (XTAL1 on the Mega32), and changes the fuses by this way.

Of course, you need a external clock at something like 1Mhz. Of course I don’t have this kind generator at home, but this can be easily done with another AVR micro this something like this:

void main()
{
  DDRA = 0xFF;
  while (1)
  {
     PORTA = ~PINA;
     nop();  // added some nop, to slow the clock a bit
     nop();
   }
}

The only issue: I need to take it back to my computer when I want to upload a new film, that’s it .. When I first received this gift, I went back to the shop to exchange it against a networked one. But 1) they cost a lot more money, 2) not available at the shop. (even if it’s a really big one).

Last week, somebody sent me a mail. He found some cheap wireless access point with a USB port: Netgear WGT634U. (50Euro) Hum, ok let’s give it a try. First test, plug a Media Player to this USB port… ok It’s working fine. But you know, I don’t have a network cable near my bed, so I decided to transform the Access Point in a Wireless client. By this way, I can simply plug the Media Player on the WGT634U and remotely put some Divx via FTP, without any wire.

# hit Ctrl-C on the bootloader
CFE> ifconfig eth0 -auto
CFE> flash -noheader tftp_host:openwrt-wgt634u.bin flash0.os
CFE> reboot

config wifi-iface
option device   wifi0
option network  lan
option mode     sta
option ssid     MyDummySSID
option hidden   0
option encryption none

#### LAN configuration
config interface lan
option type     bridge
option ifname   "eth0.0"
option proto    'static'
option ipaddr   '192.168.3.2'
option netmask  '255.255.255.0'
option gateway  '192.168.3.1'
option dns      '192.168.1.254'

#!/bin/sh

# clear all firewall rules
for T in filter nat mangle ; do
iptables -t $T -F
iptables -t $T -X
done

# drop incomming packet
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT  ACCEPT
iptables -P INPUT   DROP

# accept traffic on localhost
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp -i lo -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p udp -i lo -j ACCEPT

# accept ftp only from my home network
iptables -A INPUT -s 192.168.1.0/24 -p tcp -i br-lan --dport 21 -j ACCEPT

# accept incoming http / ssh
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -p tcp --dport 22 -j ACCEPT

# finaly accept already open Cnx
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

#!/bin/sh

while true
do
{
STATE=$(iwconfig ath0 |grep  00:13:13:53:DA:D1 | wc -l)
[ $STATE -eq 1 ] && echo 0 > /proc/diag/led/power
[ $STATE -eq 0 ] && echo 1 > /proc/diag/led/power
sleep 20
}
done

Step 6 / Finally

Here the result:

The finished product (grrr) works really fine and managed to achieve something like 850Ko/sec, I mean full speed ;) (11Mbs network) I need to remove the serial port right now, and close the box..

Important update

I read on Engadget that I use this to stream video to my TV, (like the Apple TV do), but this is absolutely wrong. This media player has a 320Go hard-drive. Why would stream film on this ? I just put it on that’s it :)

This is really amazing how people doesn’t read the article to see what I’ve done. It’s not the first time this happen in fact.

Here in France, most advanded users have some network TV from a long time, and this little boxes can play network stream (like the Apple TV) for a long time now. Beside you don’t pay for this service (rent for the boxes are included in DSL bill), the only issue is that you must have another computer to stream.

I guess nobody here (in France) would by a Apple TV, since we already have this kind of products for free for a long time. Look at a Freebox for example.

It’s time to watch a film :)

A good friend, give a old Mullard DH7-11 tube, so it’s time to give it a try no ? ;) The main issue right now, is to find the power transformer to light this big guy

Finding old part is always hard, but the best thing is to keep on trying. I finally found a transformer builder at great price on eBay.

400v / 5mA transformer isn’t really common, you know.

For everybody who want to know what a scope clock is check this.

Enjoy Ray ?

This one use quite the same stuff than my previous I IV-18 clock, the main difference is the VFD power supply, but if you read this weblog, you will understand easily. I will publish the whole design and source code for free soon.

Anyway, here some pictures:

The PCB made with toner transfert

Soldering SOIC isn’t that hard ;)

The beast

The VFD tube is really big, and nice no ?

As you can see on the latest picture, there is a little gradian due to the filament supply. I haven’t find a simple to use (as the MAX6921) VFD driver that support AC filament. (MAX6931 is to small for hands soldering)

Enjoy :)

• a 5v / 100mA for the filament
• a variable 20 to 75v for anodes..

VFD tube like the IV18 need something like 20/30 volts in direct drive and 50/70 volts where they are muxed. As I can not use them in a direct drive, I need a psu that support output from 20 to 75v, by this way, I can dim the display easily and test the whole stuff in a direct.

I already have done several nixie PSU, but this time I want to build something small (doesn’t cost a lot) with really common parts. I decided to look at smaller mosfet, and I found the BS107 .. small TO92 package and 200v ;)

Here the schematic:

With this simple stuff, and a little microcontroler, you can step the output easily. You can use a 220uH inductor with a 5v VCC, or a smaller one 100uH if you have a PSU between 6v to 15v.

/Enjoy the next step