And one of the path the traces make for the MOSFETs. Took me a while to work out how they were connected up. Strangely there is no resistor on the red connection.

And I now have it in the bedroom working. And was it worth it? Definitely. No flickering at all now. Much nicer light.

My colour algorithm needs tweaking though as the colours change a bit when the brightness is changed. White changes to a very greeny colour.

Not yet. Ended up down the scrap yard buying parts.

What were the controllers on the original control box?

If you mean the ICs I removed one was some Atmel chip and I assume the other (no markings on it) was the EEPROM.

Actually not so sure about that. I guessed it was that based on another site but the FET gate pins are connected to it.

Operation wheel bearings has entered day 3.

The chip could be an AT Tiny, I wonder if it could be reprogrammed with better software.

Problems doing the bearings or needed parts? Are they easy to remove?

I'm pretty sure it was an ATTiny chip but can't remember which and I can't see from the pictures on my phone. I think part of the problem is it only has 2 PWM channels. I assume that other chip is a shift register or something similar.

Should be easy enough to repgoram it by connecting up the correct pins and using a programmer. Can the opposite be done? Read what's on there and reverse engineer it?

A bit of everything. One side the whole hub/bearing/drive shaft are very stuck. Ended up going to the scrap yard and getting a new hub, hub assembly and drive shaft. Then the passenger side bearing was an absolute pain to remove. Nearly done now....Hopefully.

I've thought about whether it's possible to do it backwards but I suspect not because the sketch is compiled then uploaded. I might be wrong though.

That's a lot of parts changed just for the bearings :O Rusty old stuck parts are a pain.

Maybe the assembly code could be read from the chip? I don't know.

I've also got variable speed beightnes adjustment on it so at low brightness it changes slower, and above a certain level it changes quicker.

Looks like the Atmel chip is just an EEPROM so no idea what the unmarked chip is.

I thought this was quite a neat trick.

This is pretty cool. An Arduino with no PCB substrate, just steel wires attaching everything together.

And this, an Arduino dead bug DIP package.

Multi track now working!

Floppy Organ stage 4: http://youtu.be/xKELHgElT90

Tell your classmates to shush next time.

Bloody inconsiderate lab users.

In other news, Digilent sent my lecturer 15 USB oscilloscopes, presumably so he'd tell everyone how good they are and people would buy more.

Managed to blag one on long term loan for 'evaluation'. Looks very useful!

http://www.digilentinc.com/Products/Detail.cfm?NavPath=2,842,1018&Prod=ANALOG-DISCOVERY&CFID=7434699&CFTOKEN=10083b76485dfd4d-2C62310B-5056-0201-0251EEAF33D4F430

Gotta love the markup on stuff like that. They're clearly still making money on the $99 sales.

Reminds me of the extortionate prices of lab equipment when I was working at a uni. Stirrer hot plates being one of the items that made me angry. They're just a hot plate with a magnetic part spinning under the plate so you can pop a stirrer bar in the flask and get things stirring. Not sure I saw even the basic models under around £300.

Yeah. Niche market /low volume sales = silly prices.

Bought some dip sockets from China for my shift registers. Came as a pack of 30, thought they'd arrive in a small jiffy bag....

That looks like quite a large package.

Ive had some success with my Arduinos (dismantled the one for my lights) and the transceivers. I had one plugged into my phone and the other into the laptop. Tried the led remote example with the RF24 library and it worked but unreliably. Had to almost touch the things together to connect. I might try adding caps to see if that helps.

My FTDI cable doesn't seem to be working to program my mini though. The USBASP does. And the FTDI works with the serial monitor.

Are you having issues getting it to reset? I found it a real pain in the arse to time it right (yj).