WDTV Remote Control External Power Circuit
With all the technology around us there will often come a time when you wish it would work in a slightly different way. Well unless you work as one of the design engineers in the company that made the product chances are you will just have to suck it up and live with what was produced. Well when Matt from Openschemes was in this situation with his Western Digital WDTV he decided to whip up a small circuit to make it work as he wanted. Turns out that the WDTV doesn’t really turn off, it just goes into a mode that looks like it is sleeping. Matt made the WDTV Remote Control External Power Circuit shown above to allow him to remotely turn the darn thing off for real. The board design and construction is well documented, a photo etch method is used etch a copper clad board and the coding of the PIC chip microcontroller can be seen here in this follow-up article.
“The WDTV remote uses the NEC infrared protocol at 38kHz to transmit commands to the WDTV. This 38kHz stream of blinks is demodulated by the IR receiver to a relatively slow serial datastream which is then piped to the PIC.
So here’s the (software) scheme.
- Sit around waiting for the start sequence
- Decode 32 bits of data
- If it’s a power cmd, then turn on WDTV if it’s on. Go back to #1
- If WDTV is on and we receive a power command, flag that we now need to wait for 10 repeats. Go back to #1
- If WDTV is on and we’re repeating, watch for 10 repeats and then turn off WDTV.
- If some other command comes in, clear our “repeat” counter and start the whole thing over”
How to use External Interrupts on an ATmega168
Daniel Garcia from Protostack has made a good tutorial describing the steps to Understand How to use External Interrupts on an ATmega168. It is nice to forget about manually coding to look for changes in state of inputs and other conditions within the microcontroller. Interrupts allow us to keep on doing real work while the system keep monitoring for changes.
“Microcontroller interrupts are just like that.
- The microcontroller is executing it’s main routine
- An event occurs, which raises an interrupt
- The Interrupt Service Routine (ISR) is run
- On termination of the ISR, the microcontroller returns to it’s main routine, at the point where it left off”
At last, Nokia X2 now in the Indian market
The latest offering from Nokia, X2 is now officially available in the Indian market. This new mid-range mobile from Nokia equipped with a 2.2-inch QVGA display. This new Nokia X2 is based on the S40 OS of Nokia.The most notable features of this new offering from Nokia is that it comes with a 5-megapixel camera, than a 3.2-megapixel camera from it's predecessor Nokia X3. Some other offerings of
1953 Radio upgraded and now plays MP3s
I had never heard of the system that this radio used to be used on. It was tied into the telephone system and received the audio programming over the phone line. Since this system has been discontinued the 1953 Radio was upgraded to play MP3s and FM Radio. The neat thing about the conversion is that it still uses all the original electronics to make the sound so it still sounds like it is from the 50s!
Thanks Muris.
“The idea is that the mp3 player and the FM receiver’s audio signals are re-modulated by using an AM modulator to keep the sound quality as it was. The radio now has IR remote that is actually from a car mp3 player (see the last image). The radio receives FM stations from a tuner PCB taken out from a working FM radio receiver.”
JVC PICSIO GC-FM2 Pocket Camera
JVC PICSIO GC-FM2 pocket camera features Full HD video, a 3-inch touch screen, and compatibility with Eye-Fi cards for Wi-Fi connectivity. Available for $179.95, the GC-FM2 captures stills at up to 5 MP native resolution without interpolation. It also records up to 1920 x 1080p/30 fps Full HD video with image stabilization for enjoyment on an HDTV via the camera’s HDMI output. Users can select from four different recording resolutions: Full HD 1080 (1920 x 1080/30p), HD 720 (1280 x 720/60p), iFrame (960 x 540/30p) and Quarter High Definition (960 x 540/30p).
IR Jammer Review
John Boxall of Tronixstuff is known for his electronic kit reviews, he recently did a hands on build review of our IR Jammer Kit. You have to love his Fluke meter, if you haven’t seen one of these before you might think it’s a meter the size of a display but it’s actually a normal sized meter with a removable display. This would allow the display be placed in a convenient location to view it while the meter and probes are deep inside the system being inspected. The picture below is a shot of the IR LEDs all on, I think this was probably hard to capture since they are flashing very quickly. Of course the infrared LEDs are invisible to our naked eye but this shows a trick to see them which is to view them through a camera.
As John mentions the IR Jammer (infrared jammer) would make a great companion to the TV-B-Gone, his evil plan is to turn off a TV, then jam the TV so that it can’t be turned on. I am thinking that would make for a nice cruel joke. 
IR Jammer Review
John Boxall of Tronixstuff is known for his electronic kit reviews, he recently did a hands on build review of our IR Jammer Kit. You have to love his Fluke meter, if you haven’t seen one of these before you might think it’s a meter the size of a display but it’s actually a normal sized meter with a removable display. This would allow the display be placed in a convenient location to view it while the meter and probes are deep inside the system being inspected. The picture below is a shot of the IR LEDs all on, I think this was probably hard to capture since they are flashing very quickly. Of course the infrared LEDs are invisible to our naked eye but this shows a trick to see them which is to view them through a camera.
As John mentions the IR Jammer (infrared jammer) would make a great companion to the TV-B-Gone, his evil plan is to turn off a TV, then jam the TV so that it can’t be turned on. I am thinking that would make for a nice cruel joke.
Toshiba REGZA WL768 3D LED HDTVs – Specifications, Reviews and Prices
Toshiba showcased its latest REGZA WL768 series 3D-capable LED HDTVs at the IFA 2010. The new WL768 series LED HDTV comes with superb exterior design that is done in collabration with Danish designers JACOB JENSEN DESIGN. Toshiba REGZA WL768 3D LED HDTVs will comes available in 40-inch, 46-inch and 55-inch screen sizes.Toshiba REGZA WL768 3D LED HDTV specifications include 1920×1080 Full HD
Windows Home Server built into Fine Furniture
Check out this great Windows Home Server built into Fine Furniture build over at Once Around the Block. The build is broken down into build post 1, 2 and 3. The finished system looks great but I think my favorite feature is the power on light which is an edge lit piece of plastic that has been inserted into the edge of a drawer. The power on button has also been hidden inside the drawer.
“The server build was completed by fitting the Samsung hard drive behind the power supply. I made some mounting brackets out of right angled metal brackets I found at the hardware store (they are actually “concealed perlin cleats”). They allow enough height for me to eventually add a second hard drive underneath the first, although at this stage that space is filled with the surplus power supply cables.”
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