Project: XPS Ground Effects

Hi Everyone, Its been a while since my last mod. I've been pretty busy with work, my son, and Summer activities, so I haven't had much time to do any modding worth mentioning. So for my birthday, I got myself a nice, new shiny XPS Laptop to play with. I got the XPS 1530, you can read about it and see some pics on this post; http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/f...ad.php?t=15286

So, now that I've got it, I realized how I really would have liked to have some of the lighting effects like the 1730 has. I really didn't have $3000 to spend on one, so I figured I'd add some lights to my 1530.


After talking with a few friends to help me out with some electronics, here is what I plan on doing. I'm not really ready to crack this baby open and void the warranty, Its just too new for that... So what I'm going to do is add the lights to the outside. They will be mounted inside a simple square box that will fit on the underside of the laptop and shine out to the sides and front similar to undercar neon lighting that those ricer cars have.

Here are a few images of what I'm referrring to.

This shot shows the black box that I will build to house all the electronics and be mounted to the bottom of the laptop. It will be pretty thin, but the extended battery that my laptop has, raises it up just enough to make it work.

The light should escape out the sides and front and create a nice glowing effect around the base of the laptop.

You can kind of see how much space I have from this side view.

The power for this will come via a usb cable that I can plug into the side of the laptop with hopefully as low a profile as possible.

Now for the really cool part, Eveyone knows how much I like the color blue, but here is the most difficult part, It won't just be blue, or even red, or green, It will be any color you want. Yep, I bought some RBG 3 color LEDS for this, so it will make any color you want. I've enlisted the help of a friend, custom_electronics_man, who is actually a co-worker of mine who does some excellent work with electronics to help me build the electronics to control the leds.

I'd like to add some lighting effects like strobing, color changing or pulsating etc. but we'll see.

I also am enlisting some programming skills of another friend that will help me write a windows interface for this too. I should be able to select a color from a color wheel and have it change the color of the leds.


So far, I've ordered 10 RBG Color LEDS, some electroncis, a USB to serial converter chip and some other odds and ends.

the bad news is I just found out I have to go out of town this Saturday for work and won't be back for at least a week and a half.

So stay tuned, this should look pretty cool, I think...

Sounds like an excellent idea.
Especially with software controlled lighting. :up: :up:

Very cool idea!

YAY another mod from Dan. Nice idea mate, EL wire would probably do the trick.

LED controllers always make me perk up!
Sounds fun and I look forward to seeing your progress when you get back!

-=TD

Hey guys, I got back from my trip to Philly yesterday. We worked our butts off so we could get done early and head up to New York for a day. that was a lot of fun! -then on the way back, we stopped in Sandusky OH, at Cedar Point. The roller coaster capital of the US. We managed to get in 10 of the 17 roller coasters in less than 5 hours there. It was a lot of fun too, except on the 9th coaster, I lost my glasses. So I had to get another pair today, set me back $385 OUCH!.

I wasn't even wearing them, I put them in my pocket for the previous 8 coasters with no problems, Not sure how they worked their way out on this ride, but it happend, and I have no idea where or when.

I'm pretty sure my electronics came in to the office while I was out of town.
I should be able to snap a few pics tomorrow.

Sucks about the glasses. At least you had fun lol.

Well, I was right, my electronics did come in. Here is a pic.

I ordered a usb to serial adapter, some small gauge wire, small heat shrink, some resistors, 10 RBG LED's and a IC chip.

I still have to get the prototyping board and some other odds and ends.

Ah he's back... servos please... lol

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Originally Posted by Acey

Ah he's back... servos please... lol

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Sorry, the only thing moving in this project will be the lighting effects. like Strobing, pulsating, flashing etc.

-But that does not mean I'm not working on another idea for this comming winter.....

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Originally Posted by rendermandan

-But that does not mean I'm not working on another idea for this comming winter.....

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I like the sound of that.

This is a sweet project idea. I kinda want to try something similar but behind the LCD screen for when I watch movies at night.

Well, I've been working on the prototyping boards with my friend to test the circuit. here are a few shots.

-Sorry this is kind of slow going. Once we have the circuit tuned and adjusted, we can design a Custom PCB board and order it. Then solder the components on to it. but for now, Its a mess of wires.

-It just occured to me that with 10 rbg leds requiring 4 wires each, thats 40 wires that will have to fit into the small box. WOW

You got the light working yet?

Yes, We've got the light working. My Friend is working on gettting all the lighting effects programmed. I'll try and get some video of it up later.

Here is a video of what I have so far. The green is a little dim, so we will have to increase its current. I also will have to difuse the light by sanding the led's a bit.

Good job Dan. Great effort! Keep up pushing me to finish the electronics :D Joke...

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Originally Posted by custom_electronics_man

Good job Dan. Great effort! Keep up pushing me to finish the electronics :D Joke...

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LOL, I said I'd buy you a sandwich didn't I? :banana:

Looking great guys, can't wait to see how it turns out.

wow thats led looks cool nice

should be very cool. like all them modified imports ya see cruising the strip.

also... i'm totally blown away anytime anyone makes their own circuit board.

When's winter (month)? There's only 2 types of weather here so I don't know; rain or sun, thats it.

I'd avoid working on any projects so I can have time to see what you'll do then hahaha.

Dan.. you were in my backyard man. I'm about 3 hours east of Cedar Point (although I haven't been there since '96). As a matter of fact, if you took 80 or 76, you went right by me. I'm really digging this mod. Great work!

Acey - Winter officially begins in December for us.

Yep, I did take 80. I was on my way back from Phillidelpia to Omaha Nebraska.

I waved, but you must not have seen me. LOL :)

well guys, I finally had some time tonight to get some real work done on this project.

I made the small plastic box that will fit under the laptop. It's 5/8" thick at the thickest point. that doesn't leave much room inside for electronics.

Here is a shot before I painted it black.

You can see the holes where I will mount the 10 rgb led's.

and this is where it will go on the laptop.

Here it is painted. I might try and find some of that "Rubberized" black paint somewhere, (anyone know where to get it?) for now, this will have to do.

The light box control and power will be supplied via a USB port on the side of the case. I want to be able to leave this connected all the time, even when I put the laptop in my bag, and I don't want to take the chance of breaking the usb port when I do. So I need an extremely shallow usb connector. I could not find a shallow one, let alone one that did a 180 turn back towards itself. So I made one.

Here is what I started with. Its a standard black usb cord that I had laying around. You will notice that it sticks out way to far out the side of the laptop. This just will not do at all!!!

So the first thing I did was carefully strip off the black rubber surround around the end.

Then I cut some of the metal outer part of the usb connector off.

and I matched the inside part leaving the metal connectors intact.

I reasembled it together and bent the pins down.

and it now looks like this on the side of the laptop.

then I resoldered the wires on to the bent pins.

Then I made a small rectangular form to fit around the usb plug.

Then I simply filled the back side with some hot glue. -I really wish I could have found some Black hot glue but all I could find was clear.

Then I simply painted it black.

Now it takes up very little space to the side and directs the wire under the laptop to the light box.

I noticed after I took the pics that there are some slight imperfections in the hot glue surface. They really don't show up to the naked eye. I think the camera flash accentuates them and makes them show more easily.
So what do you guys think so far?

Very nice idea with the USB connector, can't wait to see you laptop all lit up.

I do have a question about the laptop though, how do you find it? I am torn between an XPS or a MacBook for Uni next year.

lol thats really well done nice workj

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Originally Posted by rendermandan

Hey guys, I got back from my trip to Philly yesterday. We worked our butts off so we could get done early and head up to New York for a day. that was a lot of fun! -then on the way back, we stopped in Sandusky OH, at Cedar Point. The roller coaster capital of the US.

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Did you guys hit the Top Thrill Dragster? That thing is AWESOME!

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Originally Posted by dfigravity

Did you guys hit the Top Thrill Dragster? That thing is AWESOME!

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That was the main reason for going there! 0 to 120 mph in 3.8 seconds. then straight up in the air 420 ft and then back down. The entire ride lasted all of 17 seconds. It launches you with 10,000 hp.

It was the most intense 17 seconds of my life. :banana:

Wow nice job Dan. I will hit the electronics hard on Sunday and I should have the overall hardware built and the microcontroller for the LEDs programmed. The next step will be to fit everything on the board. I might draw up a layout for PCB to get it manufactured tomorrow too. We will see....

Great job stealthing the USB :D

I thought the plastic box looks big in the first picture lol. Did you mold it or stock drilled?

He He I'm done with the last setting of the LEDs which is pulsating. Right now I'm trying to figure out why the transistors are not outputting enough current to LED. It's still a mystery for me... They are fully saturated - that's for sure... hm... I'm planning to output 10 mA of current per single color of LED which would add up to 300 mA of total current draw. This thing should be bright!!!

Excellent!!! I'll bring the box to work tomorrow so we can test fit everything. -I'll also bring my camera :)

Awesome, I can't wait to see those pics.

Ok, Here is a video showing the different lighting effects we can choose from.

1st i solid on. wich can be any color I want.
2nd is a fading or pulsating effect. again -any color and speed.
3rd is a strobe effect. -any color and speed.
and lastly is a color changing effect that goes through all the colors.

Too bad the camera does not do a good job of picking up the colors.
The led is much brighter now and I can't wait to see all 10 led's in action!!!

we are going to pickup a small solder type protoyping board to try and make all the stuff work first before I actually order a custom pcb. -Those are not cheap.


Later,

Dan

Dood. i'm just gone for a day and everyone updated :O

Very nice Dan! If you ever come through this part of Ohio again, let me know. I'd love to buy you a beer.

He He it's getting close. Dan has some pics but for some reason he didn't post them yet. All the parts are coming together...

Tonight I've been working on learning a litle C# programming. Here is the windows interface I came up with to control the lights.

I'd like to get the color pallet to appear in the main window, rather than having to hit the "Color" button and have it open in a seperate window.

Do you plan on selling these?

well, To be honest, Yes that has crossed our minds. But We would make it more user friendly. Such as having led's prewired and be able to plug them into headers in a plastic box as the user needed. It would be designed to just sit inside a computer case somewhere and the wire management would be up to you. And obviously we woud give it a different name. We still have to figure out alot of stuff, such as cost of supplies, or Manufacturing cost. packaging etc.