Olympia InfoGlobe (Photo: Olympia)

Transcription

1 The magic globe Olympia InfoGlobe Gunther Zielosko 1. What is InfoGlobe? Maybe you have already admired one of those globes with luminescent, seemingly floating and sometimes even rotating displays. Anybody, especially people interested in electronics will be eager to learn more about such a magic display. Some may even consider to use an InfoGlobe for their own purposes. These globes used to be very expensive due to small production units. Only advertising business could afford such devices. The new Olympia InfoGlobe (Figure 1), however, is small and comparatively reasonable... Fig. 1 Olympia InfoGlobe (Photo: Olympia) It is the first product produced for a mass market. Information about the InfoGlobe is available on the following websites: Manual (German version): Animated presentation: InfoGlobe, however, has one important disadvantage. Its Caller ID indication, which generally only displays the numbers of incoming calls. InfoGlobe can do more, like displaying date, time and even short messages. But to enter each character keys have to be pressed up to 96 times! InfoGlobe, in the first instance, is not suitable for universal display of any incoming text string, e.g. from a serial interface. What needs to be done to make this attractive eye-catcher useful for common applications? How does this fascinating technique function in the first place? Is it possible to use BASIC-Tiger to control InfoGlobe? This application note will give you some answers on these questions. info@wilke-technology.com Page 1 of 9

2 2. Reverse engineering How does InfoGlobe work? The first step in making InfoGlobe useful for our own purposes is to understand its strucure and function. Therefor it is necessary to have a look at the inside. You do not have to the following description will give you enough illustrative material to satisfy your curiosity. Later, if you wish to change InfoGlobe for your own application, it will be inevitable to use screwdriver and soldering iron... How do you open InfoGlobe? The blue dome has four snap-in locks to be carefully pressed and released to the inside. To keep the locks released, use tooth picks or the like. See figures 2 to 4 for illustration. Fig. 2 Plastic dome, dismantled Fig. 3 Snap-in lock Fig. 4 Rotating blue fan wheel (turns out to be a complex circuit board later...) At this stage you will anticipate how the magic globe works. On both ends of the fan wheel there are two small circuit boards, on one of which 8 LED s in SMD design are soldered vertically in a line (Fig. 5 and 6). info@wilke-technology.com Page 2 of 9

3 Fig. 5 Circuit board, vertically soldered on the blue fan wheel Fig. 6 Blank complement, probably only used for balance purposes Fig. 7 Bottom view of rotating cicuit board with electronics Fig. 8 Flange with two DC contacts for board power supply The other board does not carry LED s and seems to exist only to balance the rotating system. Things get exciting when releasing the three fastening screws of the fan wheel and taking it off. This reveals a lot of electronics on the backside of the rotating circuit board (Figure 7). This is where the LED s are fed with the right information at the right time ( flash or do not flash ). Nevertheless, this aha-experience leaves us with more questions than answers. Where does the rotating circuit board get its information from, how does the power supply work etc.? The latter can be explained: Power supply takes place via two DC contacts attached to the motor flange and their complements (contact areas) on the circuit board (Figures 7 to 10). Looking at it carefully, you will find two thin wires, which are obviously led up to the DC contacts via the motor axle. Although this information does not explain, how the wires are led into the (rotating!) axle, it at least helps us to continue. info@wilke-technology.com Page 3 of 9

4 Fig. 9 Power supply (red wire) Fig. 10 Second pole comes from black wire Fig. 11 Two optical connections Fig. 12 Releasing bottom screws Fig. 13 reveals the InfoGlobe main board info@wilke-technology.com Page 4 of 9

5 We continue our expedition by releasing four screws at the bottom side (figure 12). After taking off the rotating circuit board, you can lift the grey lid beneath. Again a circuit board with lots of electronics is revealed. One part serves as a motor control, another operates the optical connections. In addition key interpretation, reading number information from the telephone network (the actual purpose of InfoGlobe!) and generating controlled supply voltage takes place on this board. It is also responsible for working a battery buffered clock, text memory etc. One of the optical connections (inside) probably serves as a data transmission route, which works similar to common infrared remote controls. This leads us to the end of our expedition through the inside of the magic globe. The complete inner functionality cannot be explained, let alone manipulated by common means. A solution seems to be out of reach. 3. A less effective method programming using the keys Looking inside the InfoGlobe makes us feel slightly down-hearted. How can we manipulate this system without knowing about software, possibly used special ICs, timing, memory organisation and data distribution? Not having the right information leaves us with only one solution: Let BASIC-Tiger press the buttons! This at least enables us to enter personal messages for the display of general messages, a function provided by the InfoGlobe. This functionality transforms texts from BASIC-Tiger into a series of keystrokes. To make our artificial keyboard work, we need to understand the handling of InfoGlobe in detail. The short manual is helpful: Switch InfoGlobe on/off (for several seconds) Chose language OK / / Chose language / OK / / English / OK Set time modus OK / 3x / Time mode / OK / / 24 / OK Set date format OK / 4x / Date format / OK / / TT/MM / OK Set time and date OK / 2x / Set time/date / OK / / Day / / / Month / / / Year / / / Hour / / / Minute / OK Automatic change to summertime OK / 5x /Autom. summertime / OK / / On / OK Enter personal message (daily display) OK / 6x / Edit Message / OK / M1: - M6: / OK / / Daily / OK / ABCD123 / OK Enter personal message (display on a specified date) OK / 6x / Edit message / OK / M1: - M6: / OK / / Month / / / Day / OK / ABCD123 / OK Set timer OK / 7x / Timer / OK / / Hour / / / Minute / / / Hour / / / Minute / OK List incoming calls 2x OK / / (Stops rotation ) / OK Delete particular entries 2x OK / / (Stops rotation) / / Entry / /OK Delete all entries 2x OK / / (Stops rotation) / (for several seconds) / Delete all? / / OK Delete memory OK / / Delete memory? / OK / Delete all? / OK (for several seconds) Demonstration mode (for several seconds) / Demonstration mode / (for several seconds) / Demonstration finished Table 1 InfoGlobe short manual info@wilke-technology.com Page 5 of 9

6 Functions from the manual used in this application note are highlighted in yellow. First function would be e.g. to delete the complete memory. Press the following keys in sequence: OK OK OK (the last key has to be pressed a couple of seconds) The InfoGlobe is switched on and off in a similar way. Just press for a couple of seconds. The edition of a personal message (to be displayed daily) is more complex. After entering the right mode by pressing a series of keys (as shown below), the choice of one of a large number of characters can be done manually which is a lot of work or by using BASIC-Tiger. OK OK OK OK Chosing characters manually from a character set consisting of 96 given characters requires pressing the keys or. Pressing or brings you to the next character (it is possible to enter up to 30 characters). Table 2 shows the available characters and (in the left column) the number of keystrokes needed to reach the requested character. 0 1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D 5 E 6 F 7 G 8 H 9 I 10 J 11 K 12 L 13 M 14 N 15 O 16 P 17 Q 18 R 19 S 20 T 21 U 22 V 23 W 24 X 25 Y 26 Z 27 a 28 b 29 c 30 d 31 e 32 f 33 g 34 h 35 i 36 j 37 k 38 l 39 m 40 n 41 o 42 p 43 q 44 r 45 s 46 t 47 u 48 v 49 w 50 x 51 y 52 z ä ö ü ß / 80 81! 82? 83 : Table 2 InfoGlobe character set Prerequisite for our remote control is the soldering of two wires each to all five keys. At the ending of each wire a small DIL relay is added, in order to parallely take over their function. info@wilke-technology.com Page 6 of 9

7 These relays are controlled by BASIC-Tiger. Why use relays? Because the InfoGlobe keys are placed within a keyboard matrix and are dynamically selected, i.d. not only low and high levels are evaluated, but lines and columns are successively activated. In addition uniform and defined conditions are essential for success. This should be reached by deleting memory completely. With the discoveries made so far we now tackle buidling an extra circuit for the InfoGlobe, which requires only few encroachments into the open system and which can be installed on the inside. The keys are operated by the following Tiger-I/O s (Table 3): Keys InfoGlobe OK Tiger-I/O s L80 L81 L82 L83 L84 Wire colours used by the author Table 3 Zuordnung der Tasten zu den Tiger-I/O s 4. The circuitry of the extra box Only few parts are required to remote control InfoGlobe. The main part is taken over by the software. Power is supplied by InfoGlobe. Although it provides an internal +5V regulator the author used a 7805 for this circuit. Aditionally 5 DIL relays with a npn transistor and a basic resistor each. You have to keep in mind that there are DIL relays with and without an integrated protective diode. If relays without integrated diode are used, a diode has to be installed externally. When feeding InfoGlobe with data serially (e.g. via PC) and using a reasonable Tiger without integrated RS232 interfaces, a MAX232 with its extra circuit (as shown in circuit diagram) is required. The author chose the smallest ECONOMY-Tiger ENN-R/4 for this task. Finally, depending on the variation of structure (inside or outside the InfoGlobe case), two wires for each key and the raw voltage for the Tiger power supply have to be connected. The complete circuit of the extra box is shown in figure 14. Figures 15 and 16 show those locations on the main board in detail connection wires have to be soldered to. While soldering bear in mind that parts are sensitve to ESD, temperature etc. Better remove the soldering iron from the power supply system while soldering in order to avoid dangerous voltage to damage the main board. info@wilke-technology.com Page 7 of 9

8 Fig. 14 InfoGlobe extra box circuit Fig. 15 Connection of wires to keys Fig. 16 Connection of operating voltage (13 V) 5. Tiger software When the hardware is fully connected, we will check how the extra device works. There are two demo programs: GLOBE01.TIG After pressing the key start this program first of all deletes the InfoGlobe memory and then writes precast texts into the system. Those texts are edited by the user before downloading the BASIC-Tiger program GLOBE01.TIG (maximum 30 characters per string!) On all 6 text memories, text strings are written successively. info@wilke-technology.com Page 8 of 9

9 The whole program is strucured easily understandable and can be customized to individual needs. However, it is not very comfortable to have to program the ECONOMY-Tiger again every time. GLOBE02.TIG (in combination to PC program GLOBE02.TST) Here, the ECONOMY-Tigers serial interface SER1 is used to enter texts via the PC. For this the device has to be connected via a PC COM connection and GLOBE02.TST has to be installed on the PC (TestPoint-Runtime-Module). This program was created with TestPoint and is also delivered. It gets installed with SETUP.EXE. When starting the program, first of all set the PC COM interface, which has been connected to the extra circuit. Then you enter the texts into the six input windows. The text is transmitted to InfoGlobe after pressing the button send. This should only be done after running the InfoGlobe for about one minute, because during this time, InfoGlobe is initialised and outputs welcoming texts and therefore does not react on keystrokes. Keep in mind that ECONOMY-Tiger has to be in the RUN mode and already has to wait for data (press RESET beforehand!). Start is not needed in this case. Your personal messages now appear on the InfoGlobe display in interesting variations a perfect eye-catcher for advertising purposes! We would be happy, if this application note served as an motivation for the InfoGlobe developers to launch an universal InfoGlobe version? info@wilke-technology.com Page 9 of 9