Comments on: Hacking a digital picture keychain

By: ESECALLUM

ESECALLUM — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:51:45 +0000

I wish someone would turn or hack a cheap $20 or $30 5 inch or 4 inch lcd digital photo frame into a ebook reader for text and rtf files.

Ideally it should have 4gb storage from a sdd card with a long battery life or the option to turn the backlight off.

A lcd displays don’t consume much power this could extend the battery life.

Ebook readers like the amazon kindle and sony ereader cost as much as a laptop at present.what a rip off.I mean $250 to $400 for a ebookreader.
I don’t want to pay that much on principle.

Even a mini netbook is unsuitable for ebook reading due to the short battery life.
A low power low cost photoframe would be ideal.

I am surprised that no one has done this hack.The focus seems to be turning photo frame into video displays for which they are not really designed due to their poor frame rate.

They would are more suited to be ebook readers.

Anyone up for this challenge?

By: clint

clint — Fri, 15 May 2009 20:55:49 +0000

FYI: Radio Shack has a neat little 3.5″ digital picture frame on sale right now for $30. (catalog # 16-663)

It uses this ASIC:

http://www.sq.com.tw/product/IC/resources/sq812b/SQ812B_DPF_ASICBrief_V1.0_2006Oct03.pdf

And this 320×240 TFT LCD:

http://www.allparts.co.kr/files/lcd/datasheet/JW035PD01(digital%2010.27).pdf

Hopefully, the caps-to-lower feature of this website won’t trash the URLs.

Anyway, I saw it on sale for $30 and figured the screen was probably worth that alone.

Enjoy!

By: bluehash

bluehash — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:18:51 +0000

I was partly successful in trying out the hack on a Vu-ME Hannah Montana photo frame (photocube). I was able to verify that it was a ST2205U chip and send strings to the lcd.
Added a walk through of what I did. It may help someone who wants to get started:
http://www.machinegrid.com/2009/02/hacking-the-hannah-montana-photocube/

I however have bricked my cube. It won’t even turn on now. Will update if I’m successful. Thanks to Sprite for his script though.

By: edman

edman — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 06:00:26 +0000

I fooled around with this a few months back with great success:

http://www.planetsurfer.net/2008/06/05/use-a-cheap-digital-picture-frame-as-a-secondary-display/

I havent found a way to hack the bigger picture frames, but found a cool use for them:

http://www.planetsurfer.net/2008/10/03/converting-your-digital-picture-frame-into-your-personal-portable-mtv/

By: Ronald

Ronald — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:41:40 +0000

Has any one looked at tearing the screens out of Photo printers. Liek the large size ones that have media readers, but work as regular printers too? I keep seeing dead ones of those all around. Plus the medai reader might be handy.

By: michu

michu — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:28:28 +0000

I’ve updated the libst2205tool – it now contains 16 pre-hacked spec files for your keychain…

http://www.neophob.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/156-Photo-Frame-Hack,-updated-libst2205.html

cheers

By: DJ_Q

DJ_Q — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 15:45:45 +0000

Hi Omikun

Neither of the frames I have support wifi, just USB and SD.

I have one here. The main chip is

* MT1389DE

My digi cam got nicked in a recent burglary, so sorry no pics :-(

By: omikun

omikun — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 08:13:20 +0000

dj_q, could you tear apart those picture frames and post what’s inside them? I’ve been meaning to pick up one, open it apart to see what’s inside, then put it back and return it for refund. But I’m low on cash and don’t want to risk not being able to return it and spend $100 on a frame I don’t need.

I haven’t been able to find a tear down for one of these things. Wish I knew what they use for the LCD controller (and wifi).

By: eric

eric — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:37:17 +0000

Amazon has two versions. The black one is the $9.99 one. There are some pretty cool things you could do with this. I decided not to bother with the 65C02 processor core because it doesn’t have good debugging support (and you can brick it if you’re not careful).

Imagine a wristwatch. Put in an accelerometer and you could get one of those rolling ball games (think Chumball for the Chumby). Oh the possibilities!

By: Richard

Richard — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:42:22 +0000

What would be really cool is if somebody smarter than me figured how to hack a larger digital frame into a dirt-cheap ebook reader… plaintext files on an SD-card rendered legibly on the screen, able to index down a page at a time, and remember where you’re up to when you turn it off.

Analogue hacks I can do, digital is too complicated for tired old farts like me. :-)

By: Aleks Clark

Aleks Clark — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:50:07 +0000

hehehe. I got a half-dozen of these things off of the pepsi free mp3 points fiasco, at first I thought of them as gifts, but this makes me much happier :D

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 01:16:14 +0000

Perfect timing. I got one of those Coby ones for free using Pepsi points and it just arrived yesterday. It’s still sealed in its package and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it…

By: blueskies

blueskies — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 23:49:29 +0000

and if you look at total cost cheapest you can get it is $12.94 shipped (the $9ish one is an extra $5 shipping)

By: kyle.bostian

kyle.bostian — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 22:51:38 +0000

Add me to the people who would like to see a big photo frame hacked. There was a post on linuxdevices about a hacker friendly AGFA frame, but I’ve never seen it for sale. I’d buy a chumby but I don’t want a pillowly thing. Basically, I want George Jetson’s alarm clock. Something to put on my nightstand to show me an RSS feed of the weather, the time, and a webcam photo of the outside of the house. The little ARM’s inside these frames have got to be able to handle that. Streaming audio would be a plus.

By: dan

dan — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:42:24 +0000

no1

you are looking at the price for a new one. they have them used starting at 9.50