Openmoko:Usb light

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USB-Light

One thing that i like on my older phone, a Sony Ericsson W800i, is the light (camera light, but you can use it without the camera). So i thought about a solution for my Freerunner and the result is the following article. At least ⇒ At own's risk ;)

Idea

  • Two leds
  • Two resitors
  • a miniusb B male connector
  • a bit solder
  • and a bit hot glue

and you have a light for your Freerunner :D

Instructions

Components

Schematic

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German Wikipedia-article about the universal serial bus ⇒ http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus#Farbkodierung_und_Pinouts

Preparation

Cut the usb cable and seperate the rubber of the usbmini connector and remove the pins 2,3,4 (a lower risk of a short circuit). Now solder the components according to the schematic. WARNING ⇒ risk of a short circuit on the metal parts of the connector. Check the circuit without the metal part, if it works.

* without the metal part of the connector
* with the metal part of the connector
* with hot glue (i know its not very beautiful, but it works, it's robust and i have no short circuit ;)


Software

When I searched for a good solution to activate the host-mode of the Freerunner I found this blog entry:

Joseph Reeves modified his usbmode-button package after a few suggestions by me and here is his new blog-article with Version 0.2:

Thanks Joseph Reeves :D

You can toggle the host-mode on and off with a click on the icon. It works!

Examples

Images

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Videos

Improvements? Ideas!

It works but it's not very beautiful, perhaps you have any ideas. Mail me :D

I have three Ideas:
  1. You could use heat shrink tube. I often fix plugs this way: Put a piece of heat shrink tube around the plug and the resistors and the contacts of the LEDs, but don't shrink it. Instead, fill it with hot glue. It's a bit tricky, but gives better results.
  2. Use SMD resistors and perhaps even SMD leds
  3. Adopted from this thread (german), you could use a MIC2026 together with a PCF8574 connected to the I²C-Bus and have it all placed somewhere inside the case with two holes for the LEDs to have the USB-port still available. (The stuff with the holes etc. could be theoretically realized somehow with the CAD files ;-P )
--Jomat 19:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The idea with the heat shrink tube sounds great. I will test it :) Yes with smd components it will be smaller :) The third idea is a bit risky. I like extensions :D Thanks for your ideas. --PatrickBeck 18:57, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

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