Is anyone else finding the Blue leds on the BBB are way too bright. These are indicator LEDS, not less to illuminate the neighbourhood.. They are very distractive and could easily get toned down a few notches..
If anyone from Circuit co is listening, can you consider reducing the power down on these LEDS?
It is up to me. Not Circuitco.
I will look at toning them down a little. However, I won’t get into a “not enough” or a “too much” scenario. I will change them one time at the next revision. Changing parts may sound easy, but it is very disruptive to a production operation.
Gerald
Thanks Gerald, and yes i do understand how disruptive it can be. Right now a black marker pen has solved the problem. I can still see them, with a layer of black ink.
Hmm, maybe we can just ship a black marker in the box!
Working to cur the brightness in half. Updating BOMs, Schematics, and SRM. Purchasing looking for the parts.
Gerald
Thanks Gerald,
I will sleep better…
T
Hmmm. So you people are sleeping with your boards. That explains the brightness issue and also some of the RMAs we have seen on the BeagleBone in the past!
Gerald.
If you work on them late at night the Blue LEDs disrupt your normal sleep cycles…
T
half? please make it more like 54%, that works best on my desk.
just kidding
I was googling on how to make them dimmer. One suggestion was to reverse them. So, I think that will be the way we do this. Makes for less work. We just change it in the SMT machine.
Gerald
ROTFLOL !
I was googling on how to make them dimmer. One suggestion was to reverse
them. So, I think that will be the way we do this. Makes for less work.
We just change it in the SMT machine.
or not put them at all and have the most awesome Christmas tree this year with all the leftovers...
Or just follow the START.htm instructions, then the demo for bonescript and learn how to turn them off ! put the box that shipped with the bb over it while running . … PWM the LED output . . . or yeah complain to the guy who made it.
We will be cutting the brightness in half on the next revision of the board.
I contacted the guy that designed it and he understands the issue and is cutting the current in half…
Gerald
Do note that the perceived LED brightness has a non-linear relationship with the current. You’ll have to reduce the current further, probably to around 25% or even less to get a significant change! I once made a dimmable LED readout that had 7 linear looking intensity steps from very bright to very dim. With each step I had to cut the dutycycle in half. So cutting the current in half isn’t going to save our retinas! And think of the ‘green’ effect: on 100 000 BBBs you’re going to save over 5000 Watts worldwide! Cheers, – Bas
Good point. I think I will remove them all together. It isn’t worth the trouble…
Gerald
Smart thinking. Remove them all and then double the current with each production batch until people start complaining again!
o__________o
I got it! I will move them to the PWM pins! And move the GPIO pins used now for the expansion headers. That way they are adjustable under SW.
Not sure why I din’t think of that before. It will break compatibility with the BeagleBone, but the loss of four PWM signals should not be a big deal. It will require a PCB layout change however…
I will get on this right away.
Gerald
Wait, stop!
If you start redesigning, let's use the PRU pins that are mistakenly used for these stupid displays. Then SW has even more control.
Nobody seems to be able to get HDMI working anyhow, so that shouldn't be a big loss!
pros: someone else to blame
cons: getting more dependant on the SW guys...
-- Bas
Since you're making a mess anyway: would it possible to route more PRU
pins to the headers?
thx,
j.
There are a lot of them out there. The LCD header is full of them. I have spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to get more out there.
Gerald