PE e-ink side board

[jackr]

I took a picture of both sides of the e-ink side's board of the pocket edge. I labeled most of the chips as best as I could. The image is in a zip due to the 1mb limit on png files .

[Last_of_the_PEs]

Very nice. I hope you didn't have yours DIE before the image!
How can we benefit from the picture? Does it make it easier to program it? I know Emusan reports having done so already.

[emusan]

Originally Posted by Last_of_the_PEs

Very nice. I hope you didn't have yours DIE before the image!
How can we benefit from the picture? Does it make it easier to program it? I know Emusan reports having done so already.

you must be mistaken... I have not yet BEGUN programming for the e-ink, I've just done some work identifying how to, lol I'm not that good(yet). e-ink programming will probably take (at least) another week to two before I get started, though others may beat me to it.

EDIT: didn't mean to snap, if you took it like that, I just don't want people to think I'm nearly that good until I am actually that good lol.

And nice pics by the way, they should be helpful, you may want to also post them in the Hardware technical thread(if they haven't been already)...

[yugami]

Heres a breakdown. Most of it doesn't matter for an Android point of view. The main chips are the Marvell Armada 168 and the Epson EInk S1D13522

Weirdest thing is for the life of me I swear it has 1 Gig of ram installed. Where as my device only reports out 512meg.

chips:
Wacom W8001 - Pen enabled driver for eink screen.
EPSON D135220B1 - EInk driver chip (S1D13522)
SAMSUNG K9LBG08U0D - 4 Gig
MAXIM 17020E - pwm regulator (dual)
88AP1-BJD2 88AP168 - Marvell Armada 168
SEC 037 HCF7 K4T1G0840E - Samsung Ram chip 1 Gig
MXIC B103855 (MX25L6445EMI-10G) - 64MB Serial Flash
SMSC USB2514B D1033-A2P10 - USB Controller

[emusan]

very strange about the RAM, it looks like the RAM chip is broken into smaller sections of memory, maybe entourage only wanted to use 512 so as to reduce power? Though I can't imagine you would save much, although for that matter you don't really need a whole gig...

[jackr]

Sadly, I did come across some misfortunes w/ it :<. When I first put it back together, I broke the power switch, so I had to order a replacement [http://search.digikey.com/scripts/Dk...=P11157SCT-ND]. The switch from DigiKey has a stronger spring, but overall it works fine. So after I fixed the power switch, I turned it on to test, and it booted just fine. Thus I screwed on the shell only to find that I somehow killed the lcd D:.

[emusan]

Oh no! Could it just be the ribbon cable and therefore easier to fix(I know others have had problems with it in the past), or is the whole thing smashed?

[jackr]

I hope its the ribbon, right now I have the fabric removed up to the point where I suspect it could have been crimped, I will study it later. One thing that might have contributed is the battery. I plugged in the speakers and buttons/ir mouse cables before I plugged in the battery cable; when I plugged in the battery cable, a spark occurred around the 3rd pin from the edge of one side of the cable. This seems to occur when something is plugged into the board (if the battery cable is the only thing being plugged in, the spark doesn't happen). So it might be that a transistor fried or something, or it could very well be the ribbon, as another thing that occurred was the lcd screen flashing white when I lifted the board to re-seat it (this white flash happened after the battery plug spark, but before I managed to power it successfully for the last time.) The last possibility I am thinking of at the moment is that whatever switch/sensor that tells the edge that its closed is broken so that it thinks its always closed, and thus the lcd screen stays off, although if the lcd lights up during boot even if its closed, then that possibility is shot. At the moment I will take it easy and hope for one of those godsend $100 deals for another edge, and keep this one for parts .

[jackr]

I've attached a picture of the inside of the hinge. Lack of switches suggests to me that the pocket edge uses a different method to detect when the lid is closed. On the lcd side of the unit is two magnets. One is beneath where the pen sits, so I suspect it is for charging it. But the other magnet sits on the opposite side of the lcd from the pen, and seems to have no purpose, unless the wacom sensor is able to sense it when the lid is closed.

I haven't been able to fix the lcd yet, though it seems that the touch sensor isn't working either, which gives support to it possibly being the lcd cable thats gone bad.

[jackr]

Took a leap of faith and removed the backplate to the lcd. The backlight consists of 27 leds on one side of the screen (the long side near the hinge). The lcd unit itself is a Innolux AT070TN92 V.2 AA0700013211 display. The mystery gets deeper as I found by holding the unit to light w/ the backplate and other pieces removed, the display part works fine. So what doesn't work so far is the led backlight and the touch sensor part.

I also counted the wires on the lcd cable, and it has 50 pins, which is the same as the ribbon connecting the lcd unit to the pcb that has the buttons and ir mouse. At the time when I had the backplate removed, I hadn't connected the pcb's connector (the black one with 12 pins) to the main board, so its likely that the touch sensor works.

[ivanjt]

Oh to get my hands on a unit that I could take apart and map - started building, and taking apart, electronics units in the days of valves, now I build and repair computers and repair notebooks.

Try and trace the LED power line and somewhere you should encounter an electronic switch - either a single IC or an IC and transistor (IC will most probably have 8 pins). The photos that have been posted aren't good enough (clean well focused and evenly lit) for me to use to try and trace and give advice as to where to look.

[jackr]

Originally Posted by ivanjt

Oh to get my hands on a unit that I could take apart and map - started building, and taking apart, electronics units in the days of valves, now I build and repair computers and repair notebooks.

Try and trace the LED power line and somewhere you should encounter an electronic switch - either a single IC or an IC and transistor (IC will most probably have 8 pins). The photos that have been posted aren't good enough (clean well focused and evenly lit) for me to use to try and trace and give advice as to where to look.

My camera isn't in the best of conditions (same with my shooting skills as well) :<, but I will try to get a better shot of the traces. I was worried it would be an issue like a transistor or something (as the lcd had flashed white while it was off when I was moving around the main board.

The only chip on the pcb for the lcd side is a 06A3*7*41 (the 7 could be a 1, it's a really small chip) TSC20071. It appears to be the controller chip for the touch screen, so the ir mouse might be controlled on the mainboard instead.

http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datashe...N/TSC2007.html


I tested the voltage and amperage of the backlight while the unit was powered on. I was reading 4.88v @ 0.78a. I had tested the leds with a power source of 7v and they had lit up at about the same brightness when the unit boots up.

[jackr]

Attached is a picture of the pcb on the lcd side of the pe. The 4 pin connector is for the touchscreen.

I tested the backlight, and it still lights up, so its a chip/wire/trace somewhere on the board(s).

[ivanjt]

Not too bad a picture ;-) to make really good ones it takes macro lenses and a stable setup.

Anyway, back to the problem.

I don't think that board has anything to do with the backlight other than being a passthrough. If U49 is the chip you indicate then you will have to look elsewhere. The board appears to be multi layer so we can't trace the tracks but I am thinking the controller is most likely on the main board.

Next test would be to find out if the + line for the LEDs is connected to any other socket, the - will most probably be a common ground and unswitched. If it is, then you will have to trace where that goes.

[jackr]

I agree that u49 is most likely solely for the touch and maybe ir mouse and that the board is just a pass for the lcd/backlight unit. I tested and got the same voltage at both the lcd ribbon (where the backlight ribbon is soldered to the lcd's ribbon) and at the connector on the mainboard.

Attached is a shot of the connector on the mainboard. I labeled where the ground and positive pins are on the board for backlight. I tested the ground while the unit was unplugged from battery, and still got continuity.