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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: ddrfraser1 on Wed, 25 November 2020, 13:40:09

Title: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: ddrfraser1 on Wed, 25 November 2020, 13:40:09
Can’t figure out how to get the other LEDs on. KBD 19x. Is this a setting or is my PCB buggered?

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: Sup on Wed, 25 November 2020, 13:52:42
What happens when you use "RGB mode -" function? Or does it stay like that? Did you try flashing it again to see if that works?
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: ddrfraser1 on Wed, 25 November 2020, 14:13:20
Nothing happens. Just turns those 4 on and off. Reflashed. didn't help.
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Wed, 25 November 2020, 16:34:59
Assuming they are the standard WS[something] RGB LEDs they are serially connected so one broken trace takes out all that come after it.  It's a white PCB so I don't hold much hope of following the traces in a pic but maybe you can make them out?
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: ddrfraser1 on Thu, 26 November 2020, 08:07:14
What do you suggest, some trial and error bridging?
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: yui on Thu, 26 November 2020, 09:01:28
if either one is dead or a trace is broken it will stop the series at that LED, you could try to short from dout from the last lit diode to din of the 1st unlit one or short din and dout of the 1st unlit one:
https://cdn-shop.adafruit.com/datasheets/WS2812B.pdf
either way it does not look like something normal from a new board.
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: ddrfraser1 on Thu, 26 November 2020, 14:39:04
Nothing happens. But assuming I'm reading this right, when I touch VDD to VSS from any LED to any LED they all blink and I get the 'connect USB device' sound. Occasionally shorting that will give me one of the LEDs back but when I do it again, I lose it. Would it be worth just replacing the LEDs one by one til they all come back?
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: yui on Fri, 27 November 2020, 01:29:55
when you touch vdd to vss you are shorting the whole keyboard and usb, if you where on a 2010 era macbook you would have fried your motherboard... so it reboots and that al diodes flashes tell me that at least they are all powered, although the fact the the last LED is not consistent to me says that it is either not hardware or that it may be a bad solder join with intermittent contact, but as they all power up they all seems to work.
and if you do not want to have dead usb ports try to not short vdd and vss some motherboard do not have proper protection and may fail after a few shorts.
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: ddrfraser1 on Fri, 27 November 2020, 11:03:32
Well, as you can probably tell, I hardly have any clue what I'm doing. It appears I may just have to forgo using the LEDs on this build  :-[  I appreciate the help.
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: suicidal_orange on Fri, 27 November 2020, 14:32:58
The instructions of which colour each LED should be flows from DOUT to DIN in a chain, when you plug the USB in they light up starting at the controller end so the first one that doesn't light up is where to start debugging.  You can short DOUT to DIN on the dead one to bypass it (the rest should light up) or DOUT from the last working one to DIN on the first dead one should make it light up too - I'm not sure which your "nothing happens" applies to.

No point having LEDs and not using them, try harder!
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: ddrfraser1 on Fri, 27 November 2020, 15:42:09
The instructions of which colour each LED should be flows from DOUT to DIN in a chain, when you plug the USB in they light up starting at the controller end so the first one that doesn't light up is where to start debugging.  You can short DOUT to DIN on the dead one to bypass it (the rest should light up) or DOUT from the last working one to DIN on the first dead one should make it light up too - I'm not sure which your "nothing happens" applies to.

No point having LEDs and not using them, try harder!

Haha, I appreciate the sentiment and certainly agree with it. Thanks for the specific instructions. unfortunately none of these shorts did anything. I tried in just about every combination I could think of. The only thing that happened is that once I accidentally connected DOUT to VSS and the first LED turned bright green. I've got he brightness on the other 2 turned down. It reset when I unplugged it and plugged it back in.

[attachimg=1]
Title: Re: PCB help - LEDs f’ed?
Post by: yui on Mon, 30 November 2020, 06:02:56
The instructions of which colour each LED should be flows from DOUT to DIN in a chain, when you plug the USB in they light up starting at the controller end so the first one that doesn't light up is where to start debugging.  You can short DOUT to DIN on the dead one to bypass it (the rest should light up) or DOUT from the last working one to DIN on the first dead one should make it light up too - I'm not sure which your "nothing happens" applies to.

No point having LEDs and not using them, try harder!

Haha, I appreciate the sentiment and certainly agree with it. Thanks for the specific instructions. unfortunately none of these shorts did anything. I tried in just about every combination I could think of. The only thing that happened is that once I accidentally connected DOUT to VSS and the first LED turned bright green. I've got he brightness on the other 2 turned down. It reset when I unplugged it and plugged it back in.

(Attachment Link)
by shorting data and power (D is for data, V is for power) you gave it garbage input and it dealt with it as best it could. if none of the shorts do anything i'd wager that the problem is firmware. although it could also be that the controller only gives information to the LEDs on boot (when you plug in the board) and changes so when you reconnect the diodes later it does not change anything, maybe plugging it in/changing the lighting mode while the short is applied will give you more results, sorry if i am not clear i am not great at explaining...