Mark R's new PC illumination controller - exclusive pics

[Mark R]

It's starting to take shape - prototype boards have been assembled, the firmware written and debugged, and more importantly photos taken.

New photos exclusively at My site

I've also got plenty of spare LEDs, so if you want a board with a few LEDs on, then I'm happy to make you one.

 

[Mark R]

Hmm. Really should have put this in cases&cooling. Nevermind.

 

[Adul]

i'll have a look anyways

 

[geek167]

Very cool.

 

[Bignate603]

Wow, you planning on selling these? and for how much?

 

[virusag11]

Those are cool! If you plan on selling them I would buy one.

 

[Mark R]

OK. New pictures up - this time I set my digicam up right.

I may sell them, but I don't have the time time to build them unfortunately - if you know of someone who can build or manufacture them, then I'd be delighted to hear from them.

At the moment, I can certainly sell you the LEDs, I'd even make the circuit board shown - you could add a simple manual controller built from 3 rheostats.

If you want the controller - then these are very time time consuming to build - if you were prepared to assemble it yourself, then I'd be delighted to sell you a pre-programmed CPU, and let you have the schematics.

Anyway, these gadgets aren't going to be very cheap - the super LEDs cost well over $1 each (and I bought 300 of them) - they are, however, probably the brightest you've ever seen (unless you've come across the luxeon stars).

 

[DanFungus]

wow, those are awesome!!

 

[bmacd]

eh..not too shabby

-=bmacd=-

 

[jcuadrado]

dibs for the blue ones....oops...thought I was in fs/trade forum

 

[etech]

Mark, that's a nice job.

I was wondering if you had looked into using the parallel port as a controller for the LEDs? You could have a small program written to change the patterns. It doesn't take too much circuitry to handle the interface though I would have to have a better idea of how you are doing the PWM.


Parallel Port Interfacing

 

[yakko]

I don't want to look.

 

[Mark R]

The PWM is done in software on the internal CPU - Outputs are NPN transistors in open-collector mode and are driven directly by the CPU.

The device was originally designed as a stand-alone, not something PC specific - the PC lighting system was actually a bit of an afterthought.

I had initially toyed with the idea of USB support (e.g. for uploading new programs [colour sequences etc.]) but none of the cheap MCUs offered USB and were flash-reprogrammable - then there was the additional problem of software (Microchip don't actually provide source code for USB devices except for the HID class).

I considered parallel but decided not to for a few reasons - I only use Win NT derivatives which don't officially support access to the parallel port. I know that there are drivers around, but was reluctant to use them - in fact the current MCU based system is probably the most efficient in terms of parts; it requires only a 7805, a timing crystal, CPU, output transistors + base resistors, and input switches.