I guess this is kinda wierd... but I thought I'd ask.
I'd like to go ahead and install the translucent buttons with the backlit LEDs.. My problem? I can't do SMT to save my life. (I can do thru-hole, and pass the class, barely.)
So, would anyone be willing to do this for me and make a few bucks? :>

Me.

Mark Lord was doing it but he's been kinda busy earning real money. Might wanna drop him a quick email to see if he'll do it. He was asking for a very reasonable fee, search for the post.

I was going to have Mark do an upgrade for me as soon as Brian works out a way to diffuse the light more in the buttons.

Yeah, I'm still offering this service. It's not exactly a money-maker for me (wwwaaaaaaayyy below my normal hourly rates), but it helps pay for the odd toy around here, and lights up buttons and smiles.

US$50 for the button/knob circuitry install & test

 + 10 for 3-5 day "express post" return shipment

 + 10 for the "dimmer fix" capacitor repair

 +  3% extra if paying by credit card from PayPal

Elapsed time seems to be ~10-14 days USPS to me, 1 day to schedule & do the hack, ~4-5 days post to return it. I dunno why it takes longer in the Northerly direction than the Southerly.

To sign up, get your button kit from Brian first, and then email me to confirm and to get my mailing address. Send me the kit and the display board (only!) from your player, and I'll turn it around as soon as I get it. Installation now takes me about 80 minutes per unit, plodding carefully along and testing everything.

Cheers

speaking of which ... i just finished soldering up the knob part of the led hack... looking good so far. But DAMN was that nerve racking. My bottom LED is a tad crooked.. but i'm not about to unsolder that sucker and try again. I just took the face off just to check out the next step, and i've gotta take a day long break before i takle that insanity. phew. I'm exhausted. Who knew soldering could take that much outta ya.

Tomorrow, we resister pack!

Loren if you need to unsolder... go to radio shack and get a desoldering iron.... (looks like a soldering iron except has a red squeezy thing on it), anyway the first time I tried it I got the chip on perfectly only to find that I'd gotten two of the LEDs in backwards, I tried getting those LED's out and ended up ripping some stuff off the board in the process... needless to say that one got replaced. The desoldering iron works great and comes in handy, I only had to use it once so far but makes life so much easier.

To desolder surface mount components you just need some copper braid.

Rob

I still haven't got the hang of using the copper braid.... I was mostly talking about the through hole led's... after doing the hack twice I still haven't had to desolder anything from the resistor array though? Am I just getting lucky?

Question for everyone.... I'm about to solder on my LED's... but there's a difference between mine and the one shown on the how to page here.

In those pictures... if you drew a line between the two holes where the leads enter the diode, it would be perpendicular to the flat side of the LED. On my LED's, the line would be parallel. Does that make sense? Basically, i can't figure out which lead goes in which hole, my LED's are different.

[edit] Never mind. Multitester saves the day. =]

If the 2 leads on your LEDs are of different length, the longer one is (normally) the anode (+), and should go to the pad that connects to the resistor pack.

/Michael

got it! okay, i now have glowing buttons. The knob on the otherhand.... no worky. Argh. Too tired to fix it tonight. I'm just amazed i got that friggin' resistor pack on in one try. That thing is beyond tiny.

Tomorrow we knob.

Congrats on the successfull button hack!

I thought there was another thread for saying "knob"?


can you tell I'm bored and want to go home - it's 4.30pm on a Friday, sunny outside and I'm stuck in the bunker

Thanks Tony. Man, hwne you said it took you 6 hours or whatever, i didn't believe it... but now i can see why. I don't know how the hell anyone could do the whole thing in under an hour at an empeg meet or something. That would be damn impressive. Though if i had to do it again, i'm sure i could do it in half the time.

Now if i could just figure out why my rotary knob isn't lighting up.

Send me digital photos of the knob board (make sure to turn on Macro Mode on that ixus300 of yours), and its connection points to the empeg, and I'll see if I can see anything blatantly wrong...

Will do tonight. =]

I haven't troubleshot it yet... so i'll check the points with the multitester first, and re-double check that i have all the correct contact points.

YES! i did it i did it i did it! After a 2 second inspection, i saw that the 5 volt power wire had broken off the knob board. I must have been too tired last night to notice. Soldered it up, BAM! there it is! yayayayay.

Almost makes me want to do it. It does look good...

i'm putting it all back together now....

(just between you and me... i barely knew what the hell i was doing... i'm just glad i didn't fry anything. heheh)

I had to do some drilling on the back of the buttons with my dremmel to get them to fit over the LED's, which were pushed down as far as they could go on the pads... I'm not sure if Brian included some different LED's that were taller, or if i just didn't have the LED's down enough. At any rate... it works, and it looks bad ass. Thanks Brian!!

I had to do some drilling on the back of the buttons with my dremmel to get them to fit over the LED's

The other option is to grind down the tops of the LEDS with the dremel, which has the added benefit of diffusing the light a bit more.

The new LEDs are a milky diffuse color already. Loren has already posted two differences of the new type. It'll be taken care of on future kits.

Ah, cool. By the way, Brian, did you get my personal e-mails yesterday? Haven't gotten a reply.

I did get them, I've just been lazy.

Brian any way of getting the part number for the new milky LED's for those of us that want to upgrade?