Moar Leds! :p

[urjaman]

There she is showing off her new fancy white LEDs

 

[WizardStan]

Wow, you've got a flashlight now.

 

[mali]

Did you populate a spare socket or replace a LED?

 

[urjaman]

I have to note that the Webcam i used is quite oversensitive to light (its just a cheap DX USB 2.0 640x480 webcam after all) and gets over'd outdoors (even when it's cloudy). Still, they're the brightest white LEDs (IIRC there would be brighter green leds, though) i could find in the correct SMD format for the pandora at digikey. Normally used for display/keyboard backlighting. Note that this is not a hw only mod, i did need to add a few lines to the kernel to add the leds to the gpio led drivers list.

Here was my shopping list at digikey (I ordered via a little service here at finland that does batch orders to save on digikey shipping, so...):

QTY PART NO			DESCRIPTION
3   RMCF1/16S100KJRCT-ND	RES 100K OHM 1/16W 5% 0402 SMD
3   568-5013-1-ND		MOSFET N-CH 30V 0.85A SOT23
3   475-2831-1-ND		LED CHIPLED WHT 8200K 0603 SMD
3   RMCF1/16S100FRCT-ND		RES 100 OHM 1/16W 1% 0402 SMD

You only need 2 of each, but these things are real easy to lose (or even damage if you mess up enough), so I always order +1 with small SMD stuff.

EDIT: and @MW: Why on earth did you put 0402 pads in there for the resistors (where there would be easily space for 0603), one can hardly see these things :/

EDIT2: @mali, yeah this was just a by the book (hacker's manual) addition of Led7 and 8.

 

[MWeston]

@MW: Why on earth did you put 0402 pads in there for the resistors (where there would be easily space for 0603), one can hardly see these things :/

Sorry, I didn't even think about it that much. I'm used to doing 0402 almost exclusively except for high value capacitors. I just copied the circuit from some of the other LED circuits and pasted it in the schematic. I think I also did it because if those spots were to ever become official some day for some reason, we could use the same part and not have to add new parts to the BOM.

 

[trix]

@MW: Why on earth did you put 0402 pads in there for the resistors (where there would be easily space for 0603), one can hardly see these things :/

Sorry, I didn't even think about it that much. I'm used to doing 0402 almost exclusively except for high value capacitors. I just copied the circuit from some of the other LED circuits and pasted it in the schematic. I think I also did it because if those spots were to ever become official some day for some reason, we could use the same part and not have to add new parts to the BOM.

Sorry, google is failing me, what is a BOM?

 

[Prometheus]

I'm guessing that BOM is short for "Bill of Materials".

 

[urjaman]

@MW: Why on earth did you put 0402 pads in there for the resistors (where there would be easily space for 0603), one can hardly see these things :/

Sorry, I didn't even think about it that much. I'm used to doing 0402 almost exclusively except for high value capacitors. I just copied the circuit from some of the other LED circuits and pasted it in the schematic. I think I also did it because if those spots were to ever become official some day for some reason, we could use the same part and not have to add new parts to the BOM.

Yeah sounds logical (for consistency), but I thought that you had designed this to be hacked in manually (I had Weller WHS-40 with a fine tip, some flux, some small gauge solder, some solder wick, and a pair of pliers for this job, so get the idea), so I did put out a few swear words at one of the resistors.
Actually, even if you keep them at 0402, you could have given a bit more space between the FETs and the 100k resistor pads because it was real hard to get the resistor over its pad with the pliers because I had already populated the FETs so the pliers had a hard time fitting in between (why do I always start with the easier parts, dunno, should propably have done it in a different order).

On an another note, yeah now I have a few extra leds for stuff like heartbeat, but I didnt think that blinking white leds would be this annoying , so I'll propably only use them for a flashlight if needed (or I do have led7 as heartbeat for now, but dunno for how long).

 

[Bosbeetle]

Could you deflect it somehow and use it to light the keyboard might be useful when using the pandora in dark alleys

 

[neko]

@MW: Why on earth did you put 0402 pads in there for the resistors (where there would be easily space for 0603), one can hardly see these things :/

Sorry, I didn't even think about it that much. I'm used to doing 0402 almost exclusively except for high value capacitors. I just copied the circuit from some of the other LED circuits and pasted it in the schematic. I think I also did it because if those spots were to ever become official some day for some reason, we could use the same part and not have to add new parts to the BOM.

BTW the red LEDs are much brighter than the green ones. You might want to use different resistors on the next run of boards.

 

[fusion_power]

LED modding is one thing but I wonder if it is possible to alter the lightpipes too. I always had some darker tinted light pipe in mind that fits much better to the black Pandora paint. At the Moment, it seems that the pipes ae crystal clear and don't even have some kind of sanded surface (would also make the lights from the LEDs more smooth. )
I don't like to bright LEDs so I think about using the lightpipe itself to change the LED appearence. (I don't have a Pandora yet). Would be cool if you don't see the light pipes when the Pandora is turned off.

 

[Prometheus]

At the Moment, it seems that the pipes ae crystal clear and don't even have some kind of sanded surface (would also make the lights from the LEDs more smooth. )

They're frosted.

 

[fusion_power]

At the Moment, it seems that the pipes ae crystal clear and don't even have some kind of sanded surface (would also make the lights from the LEDs more smooth. )

They're frosted.

"Frosted" sounds interesting, good word for that I guess. Yes, this is what I had in mind, so they are no "crystal clear", very nice. ^^
I'm sure, if the plastic of the Pipes also had a slightly dark tone, the pipes would look even better, but I know this is very unlikeley.
Maybe OPT makes a special Edition Pandora in the Future, with such details that separate the Limited Pandoras even more.

 

[tsh]

my only problem with the light pipes is that viewed horizontally, the leds are only just visible. i was wondering about a small groove across the back of the pipe to deflect light forward. Has anyone else tried modding light pipes before?