Front display:

    Besides having the front buttons work, I also wanted the front display to work as well. Using the original VFD was out of the question, and I had less options once my first VFD blew up. I turned to CrystalFontz, which has an extensive line of LCDs, including USB. For the DVD Player Mod, they half-sponsored a 632 USB unit, the CFA632-YMC-KU. The LCD screens from CrystalFontz come with the free CrystalControl software (with plenty of 3rd party add-ons and plug-ins). The particular unit I selected plugs directly into the motherboard USB headers, and was very easy to configure. Here it is with the date display (the default for the DVD Player Mod, keeping in line with the stock look) and then attached to the front of the DVD player case.

(43) LCD time / date display	(44) Attached to the front

Front button controls:

     I'll try my best to explain how the front button controls on the DVD Player Mod work. For starters, the original button PCB (as seen on the previous page) came with six momentary on/off buttons. These buttons were originally interfaced with the DVD player, which obviously wouldn't work for the HTPC application here. That means that I needed something so that when a person presses the "Eject" button on the front panel, it can send a signal to the computer, and the computer interprets that as a command to eject the DVD drive. The way I got the signals to the computer was through the game pad. When you press a button on your game pad, it acts as a momentary on switch, completing a circuit. When the circuit is completed by pressing the button, it sends a signal to the computer, which interprets this as a command through the drivers for the game pad. To use the front panel buttons, I soldered each pair of leads to a wire, which was then soldered to a corresponding button on the game pad. When I press the "Eject" button on the front panel, it is actually closing the circuit for the left arrow button on the game pad. I use a program called Girder that tells the computer what to do when it is sent commands; in this case, when I press Eject, it receives the left arrow signal, and as programmed, ejects the DVD drive.

     There, that wasn't so bad, was it? Now, there were two leads for each button, and a total of six buttons. That means I had to solder 12 different wires to the leads of the buttons, and then solder the other ends of those 12 wires to the game pad circuit board. I used the motherboard headers from an old 486 motherboard to wrap the wire ends in tight circles. This made a decent mechanical connection for the solder joints. Keep in mind that I did not have any experience with my new soldering iron (or any iron for that matter) before I started this project. Anyone can solder, as it just takes a steady hand and some patience.

(45) First button testing	(46) My small electronics station	(47) 486 headers come to use

(48) Wires to be soldered	(49) 1/2 soldering complete

     After I had soldered all of the connections, I plugged the game pad into my USB port, and started to press buttons to see if it worked. The first button worked...so did the second, and the third. Then I noticed; when I pressed the fourth button, two signals lit up on my computer screen. The fifth button didn't do anything at all, and the sixth button showed the same signal as the first button. What was going on? I went crazy trying to figure out what the problem was, desoldering and resoldering all of my connections more times than I care to remember. Finally I said to myself, "It must be the cheap eBay game pad! All of my solder joints are perfect and shiny." I went to Best Buy and left with the cheapest game pad there, at $10. When I opened this pad, I was saddened to see that the button contacts were going to be tough to solder; the two wires could not touch each other, and the thin contacts were extremely close together (picture 51). Especially for a novice, this would be a tough soldering job.

(50) Game pad number 2	(51) Tough contacts

     Even with the tough solder challenge, I resoldered all of the connections, and plugged it in. The same problems! I was really tearing my hair out now; after hours upon hours of careful soldering, the buttons still didn't work. I peered at my solder joints, looking for a flaw or an answer on the game pad PCB for why it was still giving me crazy signals. I then took a look at the PCB that the front panel buttons were still mounted on, and promptly hit my head against the wall. See if you can spot in the next picture why it was giving me wrong signals.

(52) Most hated PCB

     Figure it out? Take a better look at the picture. The dark green is the backing of the PCB; the light green is the connections under the top layer of the PCB. All of the buttons' paths intersected each other, so pressing one button would complete a circuit somewhere entirely different! I desoldered all of the buttons from the PCB (no easy task without a desoldering iron) and fabricated my own, NON-CONDUCTIVE template from cardboard.

(53) Desoldering	(54) Removed buttons	(55) Cardboard template

     I carefully measured the buttons and the original PCB, and sketched up a new template in AutoCAD. I applied this template to the new cardboard 'PCB', and put all of the buttons into it. No cross-paths here.

(56) AutoCAD template	(57) First button added	(58) All mounted

    A whole ton of soldering later, the front button panel was complete. Plugging it into the computer, every button responded crisply and properly. Here are some pictures of the resulting configuration.

(59) Corner shot	(60) Back of PCB

    Go ahead to the last page, where the rest of the sponsorships come into play, and the mod is completed!



 

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