Alex_rcpilot

Yes, like that. those LED's look fine with the resistors. Takes more time to solder but definitely providing more redundancy for your design. By the way where do those pads along the left boundary lead to? Are those LED's driven ON/OFF simultaneously or individually? It is VERY IMPORTANT to note that if they are driven individually, you will HAVE TO use a resistor for each LED like I suggested. Because if they share the same resistor and not all 14 LED's are lit, the resulting voltage across those which are lit will rise beyond the rated Vf and eventually destory the shining LED's.

Actually I was talking about redundancy in your design, which would allow people who copy your design to implement different LED's instead of 14 identical ones. In your case, three individual resistors will also promise better operation conditions. Most of the LED's we use are current-driven components, i.e, their brightness is in proportion with the current that flows through them, not the voltage accross them. By connecting 14 LED's in parallel, you are providing them with the same voltage(Vforward a.k.a Vf). But due to manufacturing reasons, at the same Vf, the actual current that flows through each LED may not be exactly 1/14 of the total current that flows through the resistor. Those with greator current will probably shine brighter, and some might appear too dim. And 14 LED's will drain about 400mA according to your data. White LED's normally have a Vf around 3.2V, if you use 5V power supply and single resistor in series, you will need a 4.7ohm(1W) resistor which grows real hot and can't promise uniform brightness. If 14 indivicual resistors are used, you might wanna go with 14 X 68ohm(1/16W) resistors which are barely warm while working. SMD resistors in 0603 package will offer you a compact design, the larger 0805's are more handy for soldering.

Hey dude, I'd suggest you put a resistor in series with each LED respectively. The parallel circuit would work fine if those LED's were idealy matched, should any of them come with a lower forward voltage, it will end up being the brightest one.

Man it's really awesome job. Keep it up.

Hi ggg87, thanks for your reply. I'm thinking about getting a freznel lense for this. Some calculation on basic optics would help. I'll start trying it out in a couple of months.

That's exactly what I was thinking about when I came up with the idea of a 1024X768 goggle. Actually I was thinking about the implementation of a fingertip force feedback glove which delivers the feelings of your fingers touching nubs and switches. Problem is, with such a glove it might be weired to grab the joystick. The way I see things, such an idea is totally feasible today. The person who tries this out has got to be very familiar with electronics and computer driver programing. I'm just familiar with hardware design and a little about PC programing, but I'm always willing to try out new ideas. Can't promise that I'll start working on this, but if I do, I will let you know.

Thanks Kuky, I'm on my way.

Apparently there's no thread calling in players to join an online flight session. Do you guys start activities elsewhere? Is it alright for us to exchange instant messenger contact information in here? Would be much more convenient to arrange sessions with instant messengers.

Hi there Maraudeur, I like the system shown in the site. Pretty handy and realistic for DIYers. Looking forward to hearing more about this project.

To be objective and honest on this issue, Chinese people, especially those from rural areas tend to be less concerned about other citizens and they cause lots of disorders. But I was specifically talking about those passengers on subway platforms in Beijng. I'm a Chinese, each time I go through some crowded area I'd take my time, and wait my turn, no matter whether there is a queue or not, and no matter how urgent it is for me to get through. There are a lotta citizens like me. So I wasn't shettin' you on this. Don't get it carried away.

Hey Joe, AVR is my favorite chip, though I'm working at Renesas. lol! I got this confusion - do you also implement USB interface on M8/M16? I guess just mux/demux coz AVR doesn't have USB SIE embeded within. So is it what you're ganna do with the keyboard? Hooking it up to the AVR? I'll spend more time reading previous posts while you guys keep working on the structure. Are you guys living around each other? I don't think it's practical for people from places like Rio de Janeiro, Seattle, Osaka etc to co-operate like this. I would like to join you guys if I was living somewhere nearby, but since it's not the truth, I'm keep an eye on the progress and offer some online help if needed, and if I know the answer. Currently I'm still learning about the USB protocol through the hard way - a couple of demo boards at hand while there's no much time for this kind of "extracurricular" study. I have a bunch of AVR, MCS-51, PIC, MSP430 boards at hand for general applications. For USB learning objective I use the Cypress CY7C68013 board. There's also a S3C2410 board with 480X272 at 16:9 TFT which I can play around. So if you guys got any interesting idea, we may try to figure it out together. Would be really fun to do this. Anyway stick to your first priority at the moment. Keep it up!:thumbup:

Hi there, it's awesome to see the nice work you guys have done there. Way to go!!!! Is it difficult to find a place to have the PVC material lasered? And regarding the digital printout, what type if device can provide this quality and accuracy? I'd like to learn more about the way you handle the electronics. Coz as I know, a hell lot of components are involved, do you guys hardwire key combinations to achieve the desired output? Have you ever thoght of inviting someone in to develope some digital demultiplexing interface together with the instrument indication output driver? Switches, buttons and other input components can be scanned with a parallel to serial shift register, and then fed into a microcontroller or microprocessor with USB device capabilities. The firmware can be written to make the chip recognized as a standard HID(like a keyboard). Data from the PC indicating output status can be demutiplexed to each LED, needle, etc with serial to parallel shift registers. Guess this will provide more flexibility, just in case any modification is required in future.

Sort of like that, I've been a particle of one minor explosion in Shin-Osaka. Much less crowded than this.

Thanks. I think Chinese passengers need just a little more endurance under circumstances like this kind of rush hour crowding thing. Those people in the vid are very quiet.

Hey guys, this thread is about utilizing LCD's used in projectors. I'd like to consult you guys here to find out whether this scheme is applicable. First let's pick a compact projector which comes with DVI or VGA interface at 1024X768 and even higher resolution. We don't have to buy such an expensive device and tear it apart coz there are a lotta things we don't need. What we can do is find repair part providers and pretend to be a repair guy with a dead machine of such type. Then we can order the LCD panel and the driver PCB, video interfacing PCB. The LCD units from Multi-resolution projectors may come in a combination of 3 LCD's mounted like a box, we may disassemble the box and take the LCD with the resolution we need. I was thinking about building all the circuitry for myself, but later I learned that for LCD's at such resolutions, LVDS interface is needed, and the technology used to interface standard video output with LVDS LCD's is making it way too complicated for a sole person to handle, I'd prefer using the original hardware. Since the original projector comes in compact design, a couple of boards won't add much weight to the LCD. I've never seen such a circuit board for myself, so I'm not sure about the operating voltage. If 12V is used, we may need an external power supply and a long cord. But if it's much lower like 5V or 3.3V, we could think about using a Li-poly battery. The LCD doesn't emit light for itself, a backlight panel will be needed. It's actually the easiest part, coz this kinda panels are really easy to find. Attach it to the back of the LCD, drive it with dedicated white LED driver chips from Linear Technology, and trim the brightness by adjusting PWM duty cycle. Find the right lens for the optical path. A frame is necessary to hold the structure in the right place, video and power cables shall be taken care of so the person wearing this goggle doesn't feel too unconfortable. Alright that's my idea, sounds like, and really is a lot of work. But the first thing is, is it theoretically functional?

TorwaK, I think it's time that we corrected the name of the thread.

As in previous replies, that ain't Chinese metro. Beijing iss ganna be REAL crowded in auguest, but there won't be pushers like this, the passengers are not so polite to accept this. During rush hours in the morning, I could hear passengers yelling against people squeezing their backs, with platform security guys trying their best to hold back the rest of the queue.

I'm a microcontroller system application engineer, responsible for developing hardware and firmware for brushless DC motor systems. Back home I also design other electro applications for various uses, generally used for home and industrial automation systems.

I've been to many major cities in China and I've never seen such uniform worn by the security guys. The language spoken in the background doesn't sound like Chinese, and those passengers are too quiet to be Chinese people. If you would like, I'll show you some real vids regarding Chinese metro. Yes there are stations where a lotta passengers squeeze into the carriage during rush hours but they would stay in queue and wait for the next train if they really can't get on. And one thing I can assure you is that no security personnel is allowed to squeeze passengers into the carriage, instead they are told to hold them back to prevent any potential danger.

Well I'll ask them instead, thanks all the same.

Thanks, EvilBivol. Problem is, my XP system is in Chinese, and Star Force automatically generated an error report in Chinese, which might not be so easy to cope with by SF personnel. Or is this alright for them?

Yes I've tried that several times. Didn't work.

Is it possible for guys outside the U.S (like me) to participate? And does it require much time for online activities?

Thanks for the reminder Yeniceri. But the version issue is never the debate for my problem because: A - I'm sure the patch is absolutely the right one for CD installation; B - This patch was installed nearly one year ago. It had been working fine until the problem first showed up. If it was the cause of this whole thing, it wouldn't have validated the CD for more than 30 times in the first place.

Hi all. I'd been playing with my Flaming Cliffs for one year and a half till a month ago. When I inserted the LOFC disc for the prompted scan, a warning appeard saying that my serial number had expired. This certainly sounded ridiculous coz this was an original CD purchased from LO official site. I think something must have happend to my system which made Star Force overreact like this. The problem started with ver. 1.12a. I had to roll back to ver. 1.1 to validate the CD, then reinstall the patch. Later ver. 1.12b was released and same problem happend to it. Just now I was told again that the S/N expired, it really sucks. I recalled the day when this error occurred for the first time, I didn't install anything to my computer on that day. My computer has Daemon Tools installed, and my DVD-RAM is ASUS DRW-1608P3S. I don't think they are the original causes of this issue coz they both had existed on my PC months before I bought my LOFC, and for a year and a half they had been getting along well. Please don't tell me to reinstall Windows XP, There are dozens of software I need to reinstall along with it. And it's not so easy to make and image with Ghost because what I need with my system is always quite different each time. I need to find a way to put Star Force back to normal. Thanks.