Nintendo Journal #7

LeapPad circuitry

I've been frequenting Thrift stores lately and picking up old electronic stuff. I was hoping to score one of those servos, or maybe screen display. When I see this Leappad, I picked it up.

Sure enough, there is display in there. Except, there isn't a 2 lines into it. Or maybe four. There's quite a bit in there. I really don't know how many are there. Apparently there is a standard called DSI that is common for LED display. I looked at it, and it's too fine for me to handle.

If you know Raspberry Pi camera ribbon cable. That looks just like that. There's also a touchscreen pasted on top of the screen, but I don't think it works, because the program does not respond to touch at all. It does have standard 4 wires that I can handle if need be.

I do notice something: The audio plug is low profile. So I ended up soldering it to my Raspberry Pi!

Raspberry Pi Journal #26

Slim Pi Project

Yeah, I've always wondered how it goes. Hey, $25 is cheap enough to experiment. So, I bought a Raspberry Pi model A. Then I proceeded to remove the audio, video, and capacitor from it. The ethernet and USB hub are already gone. So far, it still works!

There's something interesting, though. When I removed the capacitor (by yanking it out of its socket, of course), the HDMI stopped working. I wonder if the capacitor gives enough current stability to the HDMI? Oh, well. I've always been planning to do it headless, anyway.

Although broken capacitor is technically covered under warranty, I don't think it applies in this case, considering that it is self-inflicted. I suppose I now truly own the device.

I guess this reminds me of frog dissection. Why would you want to open up a frog? Sorry. It's for science.

^_^;