Scrolling LED badge

electron

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Does anyone have one of these?

ledbadge_blue.gif


http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7086/

It looks like they can be programmed using IR, so I am wondering if I can program one of these units with my Ocelot/IR blaster.

There is also a belt buckel version:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/793e/

But doesn't look like it has the IR port.
 
It looks like the LEDS are actually red and not blue like the picture shown here. I am not so thrilled with the red version but the blue version is cool
 
Yeah I like the blue much better too, looks less 'commercial', I just can't find any info on the IR protocol.
 
Personally, I'm getting tired of blue LEDs. :)

Just about every device that uses them spits out way, way too much light. I have a couple external USB drives that use blue LEDs to indicate power and activity. They are so bright that they light up the whole room and cast sharp shadows on walls. I have a PC with a blue light on it that lights the whole room - I'll never need a night light in there, it provides almost enough light to read by.

The drive LEDs can be covered with black electrical tape and still shine bright enough to see them in a well lit room. They still appear bright blue through the tape.

Many people are finding that AV equipment with blue power LEDs stands out much more than red or green - to the point of covering or replacing the LEDs.

I'm not saying that the blue doesn't look good on the badge - I think it does. I'm just tired of blue LEDs. :) , again.
 
I totally agree, I got tons of blue LED's as well, and I prefer red in most cases. I like the blue in this case since it doesn't look like a scroller sitting at the cash register, showing the latest lottery results :) . Do you think I can control this unit with my Ocelot, or would they be using a different frequency?
 
Check out this site:
www.eyeblasters.com - badges

The site does not appear to be live yet. If you go to www.eyeblasters.com you get an "Under Construction" message.

It looks like the same thing and they are cheaper. The serial/IR programmer is apparently $10 if you also buy a badge - $20 standalone.

If it works with individual IR codes, then the odds are that you can probably learn the codes into your Ocelot. No guarantees, though. Someone has to be the first to try it.

If it sends a string of commands it will be more work. Someone will need to get one and try to decode the messages (or reverse engineer the software). How easy or hard that is depends on the specific hardware. Without knowing what the IR emitter looks like, you can't tell if it's sending normal data on the RS232 transmit line or bit-banging one of the control lines.

It may be possible to hack them to use a direct wired connection (not IR) if you are planning on a fixed installation. Again, someone has to be the first to get one and see.
 
I'm thinking along the same lines as smee, if the IR connectivity is something like IRDA or some other protocol with message acknowledgement, then you won't be able to use it with the Ocelot.
 
Well I received my scrolling LED badge in my hands, with the programming kit. Setup is extremely easy, but it looks like it can only be programmed while holding the badge very close to the IR transmitter. Is there a way of finding out what the IR frequency is, without using a scope? Thanks
 
Do you have a USB-UIRT or similar? You could try to learn it and examine the code.

Umm, that is if you have one system to transmit and one to learn...
 
I have the Ocelot which can learn and transmit IR, but since the IR transmission can be long, depending on the length of the msg, I haven't tried. When I held the transmitter very close to the Ocelot, the IR light did activate, so I assume it's at least on a frequency the Ocelot can learn.
 
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