Omnimaga
Calculator Community => Other Calculators => Topic started by: JoeyBelgier on November 27, 2009, 12:30:06 pm
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This is just an idea but..
I see a lot of people wanting to get LEDs or ELs in their calc, to have a back light. This turns out to be hard to assemble in many cases (which sometimes results in complete calc-messups) AND drains your battery level like a cruel monster.
So, I was thinking (already a while ago, I just post it now) why not use something like this? http://www.nadco-inc.com/glowindark.html
1 It's free energy, so it doesn't use your batteries
2 It can give light for up to 8 hours (make it 4 hours decent light )
3 I think it would be eeeaasy to assemble
Why? Well, last time I was screwing around with a calc (simple + - / * thingy) I learned that the output gets displayed on the glass/plastic plate ( in the case of the calc I was peeking in, it was glass).
Furthermore, the backplate of the screen (the grey-metalish plate thingy) was loose from the glass plate, which allowed me to simply cut some paper in the right size, paste it in, and voila, the display was black on white, which looked a lot better and clearer than before. I don't get why they don't make all those plates white, it's waay more clear. You actually get the screen quality of an emulator this way.
Anyways, IF the backplate of a TI screen is also separate(able), you could place a piece of glow-paper between it and, yh, there you'd have your own backlighted calc, with not too much of a hassle to assemble, and not draining your batteries...
Quick made drawing to clarify the idea (it's paint-crap)
(http://i50.tinypic.com/2v92azn.jpg)
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hmm nice pic
and yes it could work i suppose but you would need to make sure that the foil is clear or you would make it glow but not be able to see the screen
side note y not just make a app that sends constant juice at a low voltage to a like reading lamp structure sticking out of the connection port
one crismas light or low pwer led should be all thats nedded
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how do you mean? the foil is placed behind the display, so the output would always be seeable :]
about the lamp thing. A christmas light already uses 'much' energy to be bright enough, dunno if the I/O could handle that, and it would use some battery power. It might be doable with a led but idunno it handy tho. At least, I didn't rly like the lamp-things they were selling with the old GBC's.
EDIT: if you would need to run an app for light, you wouldn't be able to run anything else at the same moment?
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it would have to be a hook type thing and it would be much more reason able with a low power led
yeah i guess that could work hmm dont want to dismatle my ti 84 to find out though XD
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neither do I atm, I'm going to buy an extra one for about 25 tho, so I might screw a bit with that one
Anyway, people have screwed so much with them, someone should know if the 2 plates are separate or not
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hmm you can look here
http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=5267&hl=backlight
or
http://www.unitedti.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=5355&hl=backlight
they have tried somthing like this before XD
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Hmm, this (or the white paper) I could see myself doing. It depends if I can find a cheap calc and decide that I'm good enough to not mess anything up.
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well, it seems like you only have to screw your calc open, pull your disp a bit back, use ether-ish fluid (that does not screw plastic) to separate the transparant piece from the metal, cut a piece of glow-in-the-dark-tape/paper, put it between the 2 plates, close everything and done O:
+ remove batteries before working and ground yourself before you start working, just like when working with any other computer device ;]
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mhmm interesting...
I wonder if this is scam or legit, though, we never know with websites
Else, another thing you can do is this (http://www.ticalc.org/archives/news/articles/1/15/15975.html) :D
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lol, That's fake right?
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Of course, but it was still kinda funny back then :P
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no thanks, i'm happy with 2 arms
:P
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yeah it is fake hence the red outline signaling joke but imagine doing that to a ti-84 that would be epic
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it would most likely just screw any magnetic part of your calc, then melt it, let the time battery explode and let you die in 7 days, when you eventually will have a grey* skin, no hair, no nails and maybe not even eyes...
*lol, you would be in greyscale
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*lol, you would be in greyscale
lol, that's funny! ::)
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Heh, I was thinking of that radium calc too xD (but it's too long ago for me to have experienced)
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I think I actually saw this around 2002, when checking some old ticalc news, at first I was like lol wtf? XD
Also welcome back Mapar007, noticed you haven't been around in a while
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Indeed, exams going... I still won't be very active in the coming two weeks.
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I wish you good luck in them
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me neither x.x exams suck =[
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hmmm the leds sound like a cool idea, once my nspire gets old i might have to try that, or maby even soon lol. The power problem, just get a couple of those advanced lithium energizer batterys. They really do last 10X longer they arnt kidding.
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are they pretty expensive, though? Just E2 energizers were like $12 for 4 AAAs over where I live
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ya but they are worth the price :)
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True, altough I felt sad when I used my TI-83+ to program in 2002 and would go through an entire set every two months :(. I finally went for the cheap dollar store batteries in pack of 12 that lasts two weeks. They lasted four times shorter, but at $1.49 for 12 it was worth the price. The only issue: the expiration dates on these generally were pretty close and sometimes one battery didn't work at all in the package. I do not recommend these if you don't use your calc often and I especially do not recommend them for Nspire usage. They are more effective for people who program
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I have total of 8 rechargeable batteries, 4 for 84 and the other 4 for 89.
And yes, I got my TI89T last saturday! :D
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((old topic revival :D ))
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Unfortunately, luminescent materials aren't that strong. They wouldn't produce a suitable amount of light to view a screen image in the dark. (especially considering the material would be located behind the screen, reducing the amount of light it might capture)
Your best bet is to use the same kind of principle found in watch backlights:
"In an Indiglo watch, a very thin panel uses high voltage to energize phosphor atoms that produce light. The panel itself is extremely simple. As described in the Timex patent, you take a thin glass or plastic layer, coat it with a clear conductor, coat that with a very thin layer of phosphor, coat the phosphor with a thin plastic and then add another electrode. Essentially, what you have is two conductors (a capacitor) with phosphor in between. When you apply 100 to 200 volts AC (alternating current) to the conductors, the phosphor energizes and begins emitting photons."
Remember that any patented device must provide instructions for how the device is assembled, so the general public can reproduce the device for themselves. You can find detailed instructions for this sort of thing online.
Having four AAA batteris to power it, this kind of lighting would probably work well without diverting much power from the calculator itself. In fact, you could shunt it over to the back-up battery, and probably operate off it for a good two hours.
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Yeah, use the backup battery to get those 200V. XD
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That's a nice idea Zera! I doubt if I try it, but it is definitely something to ponder. :)
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just make sure if you mod your calc that you have a spare one in case you do something wrong :P
I myself would be scared to do anything like that with mine because I was never into messing around with electronics
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Unfortunately, luminescent materials aren't that strong. They wouldn't produce a suitable amount of light to view a screen image in the dark. (especially considering the material would be located behind the screen, reducing the amount of light it might capture)
Your best bet is to use the same kind of principle found in watch backlights:
"In an Indiglo watch, a very thin panel uses high voltage to energize phosphor atoms that produce light. The panel itself is extremely simple. As described in the Timex patent, you take a thin glass or plastic layer, coat it with a clear conductor, coat that with a very thin layer of phosphor, coat the phosphor with a thin plastic and then add another electrode. Essentially, what you have is two conductors (a capacitor) with phosphor in between. When you apply 100 to 200 volts AC (alternating current) to the conductors, the phosphor energizes and begins emitting photons."
Remember that any patented device must provide instructions for how the device is assembled, so the general public can reproduce the device for themselves. You can find detailed instructions for this sort of thing online.
Having four AAA batteris to power it, this kind of lighting would probably work well without diverting much power from the calculator itself. In fact, you could shunt it over to the back-up battery, and probably operate off it for a good two hours.
The only problem with this is that you need AC current to light the phosphor, not DC (which is what batteries produce). You'd have to learn how to make the program that powers this produce a AC current from DC, which I have no clue how hard that would be or not.
As for the glow in the dark tape...I can kind of guarantee that it won't work. The tape itself is really thick so that is the big issue there. As for glow-in-the-dark paper, I've never heard of it but I suppose that could work, in theory.
For the external (I'm assuming that is what was meant) LED, you would need to do all the physics behind it to make sure you have the correct current, power, voltage, and any resistors/capasitors if necessary. Then make the program to execute those exactly haha.
In short, its not easy haha.
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Did anyone end up making one (or at least trying)? It sounds like a cool idea :o
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agreed.
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If you want to backlight your calc, it wil probably be best to do it in an electrical way (like with LEDs or other energi-efficient lights). If you do it with glow-in-the-dark material, It will give enough light too see what's on the screen, but only if it's charged. You'd have to leave the slide case of your calc and the calc has to bee somewere where there is enough light to charge the material to make it work.
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Unless you get electrical photo luminescent tape :D My father used some to hack in a backlight to a LCD display recently and it turned out really well. IIRC it does require a higher voltage or something tho so it might be a bit of a hassle to install
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I think the best is still: use a flashlight that you can wear on your head. It emits enough light to read the screen, it uses absolutely no power from the calc's batteries and you don't have to modify hardware for it.
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But it wouldn't be as cool.
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..but practical, I do that myself (and it works for all the other calcs too :D)