I had wondered why they used a metal “knuckle” on the mounting stake, and assumed that the finned design of the piece was just to reduce the material needed. With the back cover off you notice the first interesting element of this projector’s design: the external heatsink. Presumably it was cheaper and easier to tack a beam combiner into the design than get new cases injection molded.įour screws on the back of the unit allow you to pull off the cover, which I was somewhat impressed to see had a decent rubber seal around the edge to keep water out. Interestingly, there are only two laser apertures in the front of the unit, which means there must be some kind of beam combiner inside that’s allowing two of the lasers to shoot through one window. Usually these projectors are just packing red (662 nm) and green (532 nm), but this one has a blue (440 nm) laser as well. This particular projector isn’t much different from other’s I’ve seen, except for the fact that it actually has three lasers inside. This was a 75% price reduction from normal MSRP, and right in that sweet impulse-buy price range. Given how popular they are, I was surprised to see a lone Home Accents Holiday Multi-Color Light Projector on the clearance rack at Home Depot for around $14 a few days after Christmas. No need to get on a ladder and string lights on the roof when you can just blast some directed energy up there instead. Just set the projector up in front of your house, and you’re done. Laser projectors have been one of the most popular Christmas decorations for the last couple of years, and it’s not hard to see why. That’s right, you’ve seen them all over the neighborhood, probably took a few stray beams to the eye, you might even own your own. But Christmas lights and decorations have really started pushing the envelope in terms of technology: addressable RGB LED strands, Bluetooth controlled effects, and as of the last couple years, friggin’ lasers. Not that long ago, this would hardly be exciting news for the readers of Hackaday. It’s in this narrow corridor of time, between the Great Holiday Unloading and the new spring products coming in, that you can find some fantastic deals on Christmas decorations. No more money to be made on the most commercialized of all holidays, so back to business as usual. The Christmas music playing on the overhead speakers switches back to the family friendly Top 40, the store’s decorations get tossed in the compactor, and everything that’s even remotely related to the holiday is put on steep clearance. It's a shame it's so limited.In the world of big-box retail, December 26th is a very special day. This has so far been an interesting device to play around with. Silicon Labs C2 perhaps?Īnd here are some photos of it in operation I suspect the 5 pin connector is some sort of debug port. Some more closeups of the DAC and an amp. The four-pin cable right next to the 8051 connects to the touchscreen. What I can do, is place an arduino or similar micro on the top two resistors coming out of the 8051 (Pins 17 and 18 on the datasheet respectively) and drive the motors myself, while leaving all the other stuff intact. Sadly, the EEPROM is too big for my flash jumper, so we won't be able to get a good look at the software and do a software-only hack. It's strange that they spent money putting it in the BOM if it was only used for testing or something. I don't know what the button's for, It's not connected to anything. There is a separate 8 pin 16 bit DAC connected to the GPIO of the 8051 for driving the speaker. It's a Silicon Labs C8051F410/2, a Intel 8051 micro compatible with a pair of 12 bit DACs, presumably to drive the motors. From previous explorations I've found that the micro is that little one in the top right next to that ROM chip. I suspect that this drives the two motors. Most of the board to the left is just two reflections of what appears to be the same circuit. Yay! I'm a little bit intimidated by all those little potentiometers. Note the "NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE" sticker. I marked the triangle bits in red, and the Phillip's head in blue. I decided to not mess with it as I might bring it out of alignment and cause all sorts of nasty stuff I don't know how to fix to happen. There is a ninth Phillip's head screw towards the aperture of the projector that secures the laser in place on the inside of the projector. To start off there are eight triangle-bit screws around the edge of the device.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |