Reverse Engineering
Revisiting Candle Flicker-LEDs: Now with integrated Timer
·886 words·5 mins
Analyzing a battery powered LED tea light with 24h timer functionality. Discovering that it is surprisingly based on a low-cost 8-bit microcontroller integrated into the LED package.
Analyzing another multicolor string light with unusual LEDs
·744 words·4 mins
Dissects a cheap multicolor LED string and its phosphor-converted LEDs, revealing shared driver quirks.
Controlling RGB LEDs with only the powerlines – anatomy of a Christmas light string
·2310 words·11 mins
Reverse-engineers a whole-wire LED Christmas string that encodes data on the supply rails, mapping its protocol.
Power analysis: Probing WS2812 RGB LEDs
·1952 words·10 mins
Whenever a logic gate in an integrated circuit switches, it will cause a tiny current spike that can be measured in the supply current. By inspecting the temporal variation it is often possible to deduce information about the construction of the IC. Let’s take a closer look at the WS2812 RGB LED.
"Reverse engineering" a real candle
·803 words·4 mins
Can we reverse engineer the flickering pattern of a real candle to improve artificial candle LEDs? Measuring and analyzing the temporal light output of a real candle.
Understanding the APA102 Superled
·989 words·5 mins
Dissects APA102 timing details to explain start frames, data forwarding, and reliable end-frame clocking.
Tear down of a cheap external USB battery
·554 words·3 mins
Tear down of a simple external USB battery, identifying key ICs.
Light_WS2812 library V2.0 - Part I: Understanding the WS2812
·1419 words·7 mins
Analyzing and understanding the WS2812 timing, protocol tolerances, and hardware behavior to enable a reliable driver implementation.