digital photo-frame hack

To get the interaction to work I had to do a bit more PLAY. I'm not that great at electronics. . .i new I wanted a weight sensor to activate my screen and the change in weight to make the footage brighter the heavier the weight. . .but I'd no idea how to do this. After talking to Mike it became a lot clearer.

First. . .as its a digital photo frame I'm using the first thing it goes to when its turned on is the menu. So having decided I wanted the interaction to be kept quite simple (all I want people to have to do is turn the power on and pour water into a dish), I had to tear apart a digital photo frame and create a new circuit that would connect to the frames original PCB. To get from the menu screen to the video playing a series of three buttons have to be pressed on the frame. . .to get around this without the buttons being pressed I used relay switches and a 28x1 Picaxe chip. There was one for each button that needed to be pressed. The code is below:

This meant that when the power is turned on the relay switches are activated and they "press" the buttons so the video starts without you having to lift a finger!

Second. . .I had to find an appropriate weight sensor. Mike who worked with weight sensors in his fourth year project suggested a Flexiforce Pressure Sensor from Active Robots. Once I had it it had to be placed into the circuit as shown below:

Third. . .I had to control the brightness of the screen. This was done by hacking the frame apart some more until the screen was completely taken out and I was able to get to the backlight. On most frame this is a string of surface mount LED's but on one frame I took apart it turned out to be a florescent lamp, and unfortunately I couldn't get this to work in the same way. Anyway once I had the LED's out and disconnected from the frames PCB I could connect them to my own circuit as shown below:


Now I programmed it using this code:



So now when the frame is powered it automatically goes to the video and starts it. As the weight on the sensor increases the brightness of the LED's which makes the look like its appearing before you.