I bought the original Nexus 7 the day it came out in 2012 and since it has had an annoying screen flicker issue which is most visible on white backgrounds like surfing the web. I have put up with this for over a year but finally got annoyed enough to see if there was a way to fix it. I searched the web but did not find a solution to this issue. I tried a bunch of stuff like tweaking Wi-Fi settings, setting the backlight to a constant brightness, and using root only backlight control program all will no luck. It seems to be an EMI issue that stems from the Wi-Fi connection, if I turn off Wi-Fi the issue resolved itself but that makes the tablet pretty useless for my needs. So I popped the back cover to see if I could shield the board from the Wi-Fi antenna. I have been able to resolve the issue and here is a basic rundown of how to fix the issue.
AVR & Nintendo DS to FTDI Vinculum USB Host HDR PTP/MTP Camera controller
Introduction:
I have created code and an interface that allows an Atmel AVR or Nintendo DS to control a DSLR camera through a FTDI Vinculum USB host controller. The code implements a very basic subset of the Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) / Picture Transfer Protocol (MTP) protocols which are used on DSLRs and many point and shoot cameras. This interface allows an Atmel AVR or Nintendo DS to control a modern USB camera such as a DSLR. I wanted to do this to create a standalone HDR controller without the need to haul around a laptop. For more background information on why I decided to do this and the CPLD interface I created to allow a Nintendo DS to talk to the FTDI Vinculum please read my previous blog post. I got the Nintendo DS / AVR USB controller working in June and have not changed the code since August so it is long overdue for me to post the code and schematic.
The code was written and developed on an Atmel AVR (non-Arduino) and ported over to the DS. It is much easier to develop code on an AVR then on the DS which you have to constantly swap SD cards on every recompile. I wrote the code to be as platform independent as I could so it can be moved to whichever device needed. I do not think it would be too hard to add to the Open Camera Control Project (OCC) (talked about in last blog post) code, you will need to call a few functions to init the Vinculum and to take picture, change exposure time, etc.
Nintendo DS Slot-2 (GBA) DMA to FTDI PFIFO Interface
Introduction:
In May of this year (2010) I wanted to create a USB HDR camera controller allowing me to shoot more then three bracketed shots quickly and in one set (most DSLRs only allow you to bracket up to three photos in one set). There is a open source project already out there to do this, the Open Camera Controller (OCC), this project uses a Nintendo DS or Nintendo DS Lite and a simple arduino interface cartridge to fire the remote shutter release on your camera. This project has a really nice software interface, the only limitation is that most camera do not allow faster then 1/20 sec remote shutter release exposure times in bulb mode. You also have to account for the frames per second rating of the camera and memory card speed. So I wanted to switch to PTP/MTP USB control of the camera which can use the camera to the full extent of it’s capabilities but is much more complicated to implement. I figured the best way to do this would be to try and add USB host capabilities to the Nintendo DS through an expansion card which would allow the possibly of adding USB control to the OCC project.
The first step was to figure out how the Nintendo DS (NDS) talks to the Slot-2 Game Boy Advanced (GBA) cartridge slot. In the OCC project the NDS talks to the arduino by toggling one data line (pin-3 WR#) on the GBA SLOT-2 that is used to fire off the rumble motor in a rumble cartridge. This allows the NDS to tell the OCC arduino to start and stop capture but will not work for the more complex data communication needed for USB control. I started by learning how to compile code to run on the DS, then figuring out the code needed to talk to the GBA slot, reversed engineered the DMA the NDS uses to talk to the GBA slot, and finally wrote logic for a CPLD to convert the GBA SLOT-2 DMA interface into FTDI PFIFO interface used on the FTDI vinculum USB host controller.