9

CAN I HACK IT?

An LED badge?

Let the world know who you are

ou’re walking around a

conference, and around your neck

is a lanyard, and typically this is a

piece of card/paper that has your

details upon it. Once you have

been to enough conferences, then

your collection grows! But, what if we could have our

own name badge, one that we can change to meet

our needs? And how can we use it in cosplay and

projects? Well, there is only one way to find out, and

that is to hack it!

GENERAL CONSTRUCTION

Made from a thin, semi-rigid plastic that can be easily

modified with hand tools, the badge measures 92 mm

wide and 29 mm tall, with a depth of 6 mm. On the

right-hand side of the plastic frame are two buttons,

for power and brightness, with the brightness

button also doubling up as a way to select different

animations on the badge – more on that later. Also

present on the right is a micro USB charging/data port

used to program the badge. Dominating the front

of the badge is a 48×12 array of LEDs – that’s 576

LEDs, wow! The LEDs are diffused using a bezel of

thin plastic; ours was red, but this changes depending

on the colour of LED. Around the back of the

badge, we have a magnetic clasp to hold the badge

onto clothing without leaving a mark; however, this

is quite weak, so the badge also has a traditional pin

clasp, which will leave a mark on clothes, but it is

unlikely to fall off.

To open the case, we looked to the back and found

that it was held in place using a series of tabs that

latch into place. We found that the section nearest

the pin clasp and buttons was the best place to open

the case, using an iFixit spudger kit.

POWER

When the case is open, we see a silver plastic

pouch, and this is our lithium polymer battery, rated

at 3.7 V, but with no identifiable capacity. The good

news about the battery is that it is soldered to the

main board using tabs, so that means the battery

is replaceable, but do be careful as LiPo batteries

do not like heat, and may explode. Charging is via a

micro USB port, which means that the badge has a

controller that bucks 5 V down to something battery-

compatible, and a quick look shows it to be a 662K

voltage regulator, which has a fixed output of 3.3 V.

An LED badge?

Can I Hack It?

Y

Les Pounder

@biglesp

Les Pounder loves

taking things to

pieces and seeing

how they work. He

teaches others as part

of the Raspberry Pi

Foundation’s Picademy

event. He blogs over

at bigl.es

YOU’LL NEED

Animated

name tag

COST

approx. £13

WHERE

hsmag.cc/XOXfRR

Above

The badge is small, yet

packed with options

for those who want to

dig deep!