LED badge hacking

Technology
LED badge hacking
ledbadgehack_cc.jpg


From the MAKE Flickr pool

Furan dug into an LED message scrolling badge to gain custom control –

This is one of those el-cheapo led nametag badges. The inside of the badge had one of those gloptop chips between some pads for a smt chip, so I dremeled out the gloptop, reverse engineered the schematics for the board, and hooked up an AVR. This is just the start, coming soon I’ll do this with a white and blue badge, completely self contained with (hopefully) decent PWM effects

Total removal is certainly one effective way of dealing with the problem of manufacturer’s “black blob” IC’s.

4 thoughts on “LED badge hacking

  1. Brian says:

    hey, I’ve acquired one of those cheapo badges and am just about to start hacking it using an arduino board, im a complete newbie so do you have any advice on pitfalls before i start?

    1. Collin Cunningham says:

      hmmm, haven’t worked with one myself. Maybe try drpping a comment on Furan’s video over on flickr –
      http://www.flickr.com/photos/oohshiny/3362574208/in/pool-make

      otherwiise, experimentation is king!

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