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Registered Member #213
Joined: Sun Feb 19 2006, 05:48PM
Location: Blythewood, SC
Posts: 39
I recently watched kipkay's night vision camcorder hack, and decided I could do better. However, I have run into a bit of a road block. I have the viewfinder taken off of an old mini vhs camcorder, but I need some help figuring out how to get video input into it. I would prefer a simple S-Video input solution, but any help would do. I have included some pictures to illustrate what I am talking about.
The entire thing.
The power connector between the lcd and viewfinder circuit board.
The cable connecting the viewfinder to the camcorder.
The torn down camcorder.
The socket on the main board where the viewfinder hooks in. (disregard the solder sticking off of it)
Registered Member #95
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 04:57PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 1308
Well, first off I would look at the ICs to see which one controls the LCD. With a datasheet you should then be able to see what kind of communication is used between the camcorder and display, and where you can inject a video signal.
Registered Member #213
Joined: Sun Feb 19 2006, 05:48PM
Location: Blythewood, SC
Posts: 39
Ok, an update. Uzzors, your suggestion pointed me in the right direction. With the good ole trial-and-error-and-hope-nothing-breaks-in-the-
process approach, I traced leads every which way until I finally got the output from my digital camera (S-Video) to appear in the view finder. Now the only thing left is to figure out the power hookup for it. Where it hooks in to the main board on the camcorder, I can find voltages ranging from 4.5-18v with respect to ground. Will I have to supply all these individual voltages to get it to work, or will I be able to find a simpler power solution?
A side note of interest: The backlight for the lcd is an opaque rectangle that has HV leads. I'm not sure of the actual voltage, but it is enough to notice an (extremely) small arc to one's finger. Is this a normal setup for backlights? (I've gone through quite a few CRT displays, but this is my first LCD.)
Registered Member #56
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:02AM
Location: Southern Califorina, USA
Posts: 2445
You probably will need to supply a 18v and maybe 5v to it. Try clipping leads one at a time and see how few you can take it down to and have it work. Hopefully that will get you down to just a few lines, and from there you can splice in an ammeter to measure the current, and for the ones that are less than a few ma you can use a resistive divider off of the 18v signal to keep it happy. For the higher current ones you will probably want to get a lm317 (you can get them in a tiny to-93 package for work like this)
Registered Member #213
Joined: Sun Feb 19 2006, 05:48PM
Location: Blythewood, SC
Posts: 39
Haha, that's true. Man, if I was employed to design circuits for some company, I would love to mess with people like us. *some guy taking a camcorder apart* - "What the flux?! Why does this thing convert 120v AC into 12v DC, back to 120 AC, then to 1200v, then back to the 12v needed to run the viewfinder? IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE!"
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Night Vision HUD
