Some process:
Quick rundown on how I did these mods. I don't have time to write a
tutorial, but hopefully this will give enough info that anyone wanted
to do DIY can do so, or learn enough that the rest can be filled in by
other people in the group.
First of all - how to add an IDE activity indicator to your AJBR or
AJB, so you can see what the HDD is really doing.
This is simple, since it's part of the IDE standard. You need an LED,
a matching resistor, and some wire.
(If you don't know what resistor you should be using, go here:
http://linear1.org/ckts/led.php
Supply voltage is 4.8 to 5V, diode voltage is whatever your LED's
required voltage is (usually something like red: 1.8V, green 2.2V,
white and blue 3.6-4V). Diode rated current is how much current you
want it to use (ie how bright it should be). I recommend keeping this
low, as you don't want your indicator cutting into your playback
battery life. Say 5mA?)
In the photos section of the group
http://photos.groups.yahoo.com/group/archosjukebox6000/lst
go to "Justin's (Harlequin) mods, and look at the howto picture.
Pic (b) shows the top underside of the AJBR, where the HDD plugs in.
(c) is a closeup, showing where I wired the negative - the third pin
from the right - pin 39 of the IDE interface. In pics (e) and (f) you
can see the wire from that pin coming up the case and going to the
(temporary and messy) LED and resistor. Next to it is an identical
wire, this connect the other side of the LED+resistor to the positive.
You can see where I have soldered this in pic (f) - the positive of
the HDD power supply. Even though the AJB is different from the AJBR,
all these pins should be in the same place, since both use the same
drives.
And that's it. I just drilled a hole in the front of the case for the
LED (I'm going to replace the case, and the LED, so I wasn't concerned
about having it look perfect - this was just proof of concept.
Second mod - the white backlight.
The observant among you will know that detailed info and photos have
already been posted on changing the backlight of a AJB, by T.J., but
the backlight in a recorder is quite different, so I've included some
pics.
Pic (d) shows the SMD LEDs on my index finger - tiny. (related note:
In order to get these, I had to buy quite a few - they don't sell them
separately. I'll sell a set of four for US$8 if people are
interested.)
I removed the plastic light-pipe frame that the LCD screen sits on
(d). The LCD is attached by two strips of adhesive - ease the LCD off
very carefully because if you break it, I doubt you'll find a
replacement easily. Do this by flexing the plastic frame NOT the LCD.
This was a little tricky. It's not strictly necessary, but when
mounting such small parts, I really wanted to be able to take the
frame out and work directly on it.
Also seen in (d) I used transparent epoxy dabs to glue the LEDs
directly the to sides of the plate. (When buying epoxy, always get
clear stuff - you never know when you'll need the optical properties
of a transparent liquid that sets into plastic - this pipes the light
directly into the frame).
I then wired up the LEDs in parallel, part by running copper adhesive
tape around the sides of the frame (as can be seen in (e)), partly
through wires.
I desoldered the existing green backlight LEDs, and connected the news
ones in their place with a resistor to bring the current consumption
down to 30mA total (what the green ones drew in total. Make sure you
get the resistance right as with four of these in parallel, you could
easily end up drawing 100mA, which would slash you battery life (but
it would be very bright!). Perhaps you could use a pot in place of the
resistor so you have a knob on the front of the case to adjust your
backlight brightness? Or an LDR so it automatically adjusts to the
ambient light level?
I used a 10 ohm resistor, but connected to both of the existing LED
resistors (you can't see them - they're on the other side of the
board, but I knew they were there because of the fantastic schematics
available for the recorder, which you can download in the files
section), thus effectively putting them in parallel.
Anyway, once that was all done, I put the plate back (added a piece of
paper between it and the circuit board to prevent anything touching
the copper tape and making an unwanted connection), and then soldered
wires from it to the spots on the PCB where the old LEDs used to be.
The old LEDs are two sets of two LEDs in series, with the two sets in
parallel. This conveniently provides a 3.6V per set, thus making
conversion to white or blue LEDs fairly straightforward. (Foresight on
behalf of archos designers? Are upcoming models going to offer
different colours?)
The finished set up can be seen in (e). As with the IDE indicator, the
resistor I used (through-hole instead of SMD) is just temporary until
I start working on making a custom case.
Hope that helps.
Seeya,
Justin