Jeri Ellsworth. Solari/solari.html. Reverse engineering and creating a controller for Solari soft flap display What follows is a very rough documented account of how I reverse engineered some of the above solari soft-flap display units and produced a more upto date controller for my client who bought 20 of them at a recent on-line auction Armed with a screwdriver the first thing I did was pull the unit apart to see how it ticks.
The dismantled unit is below, as you can see it consists of a 36VAC synchronous motor with two PCB's containing the motor control logic. I have had very little dealings with synchronous motors in the past, mostly old belt drive record players back in the eighties which worked at the 50hz frequency of the mains supply. Since we had no luck contacting the current maintenance providers for the units, the operation of the control circuitry had to be reverse engineered from scratch :-( From this you can deduce several things, firstly (except for the obvious fact I cannot draw!) Daughter Mk2. ATMEGA1284P-PU Atmel. HobbyTronics. Programmers - AVR - Proto-PIC. ATAVRISP2 - ATMEL - PROGRAMMER, AVR, MCU, ISP. SMD How To - 1.
Skill Level: Beginner by Nate | September 02, 2006 | 10 comments It's Not That Bad!
More and more ICs come in surface mount packages only these days. And I can't tell you how many times I've heard someone say 'Well I can't solder that because it's SMD'. They're wrong! That's 0.5mm from pin to pin! This tutorial will show you just how to solder crazy things like this connector, leadless ICs, etc. SOT23 TQFP QFN Even BGA! The tools you absolutely must have: $50+ soldering iron Solder wick Solder (leaded is always easier to work with, but here at SFE we use lead-free) That's it. Here is a list of tools I recommend: Wire wrap wire (for 'jumper' wire fixes) Wire strippers (adjustable down to 30AWG) Hemostats (tweezers will also work) Hot-air rework station ($200 will do it) Monocle (I haven't used one, but others have recommended it to me) Scalpel (see cutting traces and green wire fixes) We decided to make a series of videos to help show what exactly where trying to do. SparkFun Bus Pirate Logic, SPI, I2C Protocol Analyzer.
The Bus Pirate is a Logic and Protocol Analyzer from Sparkfun which can analyze I2C, SPI, JTAG, MIDI, HD44780 LCD and other protocols.
With the free LogicSniffer software, this has to be the cheapest analyzer around. The Bus Pirate, created by Ian Lesnet and featured on Hack a Day, is a troubleshooting tool that communicates between a PC and any embedded device over most standard serial protocols, which include I2C, SPI, and asynchronous serial - all at voltages from 0-5.5VDC. This product eliminates a ton of early prototyping effort when working with new or unknown chips. These boards are loaded with the latest bootloader and firmware.
Currently these are Bootloader V4.4 Firmware V5.10 Note: This is the board only. The main components of the Bus Pirate are PIC24FJ64 processor and an FT232RL USB-to-Serial chip. LogicSniffer showing captured data LogicSniffer showing decoded I2C analysis. LED Profile/Extrusion - LED Lights Zone. Getting Started with Arduino Book (paperback) from Cool Components. MBO - Kaisertech Ltd.