Attaching the LCD Boards and More Prototyping

Drilled recessed holes in the side of my box and attached the LCD board to the front inside wall. Made my own wooden washers with my dremel since it's cheaper than buying some :)

It looks really clean now and I'm glad it's secured so that I don't damage the LCD cables.

Decided to prototype the new design that I had thought of for the LED arrangement with the top bezel being half the height of the current one. Took some thin wood paneling, made two 3 x 46 cm pieces, and taped them together. Took the piece of cardboard cereal box that I had prototyped the previous LED rails on, stuck in 8 LEDs spaced again 2 cm apart, and taped it to the bottom of the panels:

Then flipped it over and butted it up to the edge of the LCD. Used screws to hold the top flap up so that the IR light could be spread out over the screen:


It worked pretty well, though since the LEDs are so directional I got only a small plane to work with, but it has convinced me that this method can work. Going to go to Home Depot tomorrow to buy some materials to make it afterwards.

On another note, my cheapo web cameras arrived. They are Logitech Express ones, cost $5 each but $30 total with shipping. Going to dissect them and hope that the IR filter is easy to remove. Have a couple projects that are similar to using IR but a little different, so stay tuned.

More work - more burning of LEDs

So i got brave enough to turn on everything tonight..I say brave enough because I have been crossing my fingers every time I turn the LED array on and hoping I don't see little fires inside the LEDs or smell any of them burning up (the smell is kinda like burning skin). Anyways, turned it all on, with the side door open, as I couldn't push my backlight all the way in since my LCD boards aren't mounted on the side wall. I went to Home Depot on the way home from work and picked up some bolts and such to mount the LCD boards, but didnt get to it tonight. Also picked up some hardware to mount the camera.
Anyways....
Here is a pick of it on with the top off:




(Woohoo!!! Look at those awesome blobs...Im loving it!)

While I was testing the touch response the wires going to the LEDs all of a sudden starting smoking, so I turned off the power quickly. Thought something may have grounded out on my metal LED rails, so checked each rail to the wires on each LED string and found that one of the sides had indeed grounded itself to the metal rail:

So fixed it up and tested it again. And over the hour or so, hooked the rail up and watched as some of the LEDs worked and others didnt. Some lit on fire and some simply didnt turn on. When I found one that didnt work I marked it with the whiteboard marker on the acrylic, took it out, and resoldered a new one on:


I am beginning to think that my current setup on how the LEDs are arranged isnt the best. I have determined that I dont like the thick lip from the height of the LED rails and have thought of ways to reduce such lip:

I ordered 100 more 850nm IR LEDs from ebay (Hong Kong) again today so that I can have enough to work with, as I burned up probably about 50 or so already.

Also after getting the touch response to work really well earlier in the night, I attempeted to get the flash programs to work, but couldnt. Found info on how to hopefully get it working on the nuigroup forum here. So will try this once I can stop melting my LEDs