Fun with a Linear CCD

Some time back, Billy gutted a USB scanner, so he could grab the fun parts like mirrors, steppers etc. He sent me the board with the sensor on it, in the vague hope I might be able to do something with it. Sadly, I didn't take a picture of the original board then. Initially, I looked over the board, and could identify the memory, the scanner USB chip, and the fact there was a linear CCD onboard. After figuring out there wasn't anything much I could do quickly, it sat on the side for a while. Eventually, I figured that I should do something with it, and if I was going to do anything with it, I'd need to figure out how to interface with the CCD. If nothing else, I figured this would be a good learning exercise.

(Ab)using CurrentCost dev boards part 4

Last time around, I'd managed to get as far as starting and stopping the transmitter. I also alluded to the fact that it was slightly more difficult than I'd expected! I also needed to tap the receiver in order to see what's going on! First thing, in order to be able to see that we've transmitted valid data, we need to be able to receive. The CurrentCost EnviR base is already set up correctly for receiving, which should make life easier. So, we need to take the receiver apart and see what we can find.

Hacking a ScoutGuard camera - part 3

In the previous posts [1] [2] I mentioned that the ultimate goal was to load modified firmware on to the device and one possible route would be via JTAG. It was hoped that the test points in the bottom left corner would provide JTAG access:

Ericsson PTF-118 pager teardown

A recent ebay score was a job lot of 5 Ericsson pagers for the grand total of £10. The 'buy it now' temptation was too great and before I'd had a chance to look into the feasibility of getting these 90's era devices to do anything fun it was too late, I'd clicked the button.

Between committing to buy and the devices arriving, I'd managed to at least figure out that there are plenty of warning pages on ebay explaining that BT pagers will no longer work. Looking back, the seller had cunningly covered the blatant BT logo on the top right of the box with convenient positioning:

Linksys EG008W switch repair

I've had a Linksys EG008W Gigabit ethernet switch for some time now, and other than a noisy fan and no jumbo frames it has worked pretty well over the last seven years or so. It comes in a case that's rather definitive for Linksys.

Sadly, in the last few days it has started acting up in the form of random resets. It's now got to the point where it's spending more time in reset than switching, which makes it rather useless unless you want a notwork. So, now's a good time to tear it apart!

Hacking a ScoutGuard camera - part 2

Just a quick look at some of the hardware used by the ScoutGuard 550 wildlife camera.

Front

There are several test pads on the front side of the board and these will be explored in a later post. Hopefully the double row of pins above the serial port are JTAG but their actual purpose is currently unknown.

Hacking a ScoutGuard camera - part 1

A while ago I picked up a ScoutGuard 550 wildlife camera with the grand plan of capturing interesting wildlife in local woods.

Fast forward a couple of years and with nothing but pigeon shots to show I decided to have a go at tackling one of the features always bugged me. Each photo has a logo in the bottom left corner. In reality this isn't a big deal but it did strike me as slightly annoying since I'd paid for the camera and I shouldn't have to advertise on their behalf.