Inside the space navigator

inh · 01-17-2007, 12:14 AM

so yea i did it. A few hours after i got my space nav i decided to take it apart..
Consider this the hardware companion thread to the driver development one.
peel off the lil rubber pad on the base and there's three screws.. pop those out and it comes apart beautifully..

Three screw locations:

PCB attached to hat carefully lift the pcb straight up as it is connected to another board via a connector:

two PCBs:

LED locations for those that wish to change (have fun with that!):

2nd PCB that is attached to the hat somehow..:

edit: once again i couldnt resist.. HAD to get the pcb out of the hat. it is held in by those three bulky solder joints around the outer edge, with flux all around them. these are the springs that return the hat to center. problem is, they are solderd on that pcb on both sides... so i wont be gettin that pcb out after all, unless i someohoem mangle this SN (space navigator) to where its broken anyways... ah well, at least i tried..

Notes:
-This thing should be pretty easy to mold in to a dash once apart. Most of the weight is in that solid metal base. Its actually a lot smaller and simpler than i originally thought..
-LEDs:
--SMD case style 0603
--OEM LEDs need 2.9v
--and draw 21.6mA of current
--It appears that the LEDs are current-limited through a 180ohm resistor (actualyl a pair of resistor arrays, but whatever)
You can probably use any normal LED without issues. If you try and use a SUPER BRIGHT one, it may burn out very quickly, it may bever burn out. I have to track down the resistors theyre using on this board first before i can tell you for sure.

You could go with a 'normal' led with legs, but then it wouldnt fit in the colord ring around the space nav. You could make your own out of hot glue or something if you wish (since the one that it comes with is light blue.)

Also, if you have an 80mm casefan with the two neon ligts like this one:

(one around the fan blades and a smaller ring around the center, well that center ring would probablt fit pretty damn close.. I have one and im pretty sure it would work fine.

Mouser has a nice selection of SMD leds here. Soldering them on is the freakin fun part though

Too bad i'm goin to iraq, or i'd probably offer a spacenav mod service

sama · 01-17-2007, 02:46 AM

good work! And thanks for all the info on the LED's. Did you pull any off or did you measure it all in situ?

With that base off, and some screws threads there, it will make it really easy to position it somewhere nice on the console and stabalise it with some frame or sorts. I have just the place waiting for it.

The soldering of the LED's looks to be tricky, i'm not a great fan of SM componenets. I'm after an amber colour, and amber is made from red and bit of yellow. I guess I'll have to use Red LED's and hope that the mix with the blue ring will not be too violet. Otherwise I'll have to bleach that ring yellow, or maybe sand it to make it a little whiter then colour over it, which would make it darker I guess, but I'm not fussed about the brightness, only about the colour matching.

inh · 01-17-2007, 10:53 AM

Woudlnt orange LEDs work? I'm not a big fan of all those funky color names.. Stick to the ones inthe rainbow

And yea, i was thining the exact same thing about being able to screw this thing down to a frame. Going to make mounting it somewhere very easy and sturdy..

About the ring, you could always just make your own. I used to do it when modding xbox's with hot glue. This ring is pretty simple and wouldnt be tough to make a mold from, and then fill with hot glue

sama · 01-17-2007, 11:05 AM

what's wrogn with Amber?

that sounds like a plan. I'll need a weekend for this. When I'm not moving house preferably!

inh · 01-17-2007, 11:09 AM

mouser.com sells orange leds in the pakcage size that im PRETTY sure these are. lile $0.47 each. But i dont think theyre too horribly bright.

edit: bunch of led's from digi-key

Defiler · 01-17-2007, 03:33 PM

Orange All The Way!!!!! Lol

sama · 01-17-2007, 07:54 PM

I just took mine apart too. it was very easy indeed. I've got myself a spare center console part (a compartment that you put crap in) which this will fit perfectly into.

iDrive... eat your heart out

inh · 01-17-2007, 08:00 PM

hehe sweet man!

now we just need a useable driver

i bought this just for RR so dont let me down...

guizai · 01-18-2007, 12:20 PM

keep it coming guys. I'm wondering if some plexiglass could be used to change out the light blue plastic or am I looking at the pic wrong. does that piece have different elevations to it? I would want mine to be AMBER/ORANGE/RED-YELLOW as well.

inh · 01-18-2007, 12:25 PM

the blue ring is pretty much a 3 dimensional piece.. although im sure a flat plexiglass one would work fine. I should have taken pics of just that... Next time i have it apart i will. It also has small holes molded in it for the LEDs to sit in, so the light distributes better.

sama · 01-19-2007, 04:04 AM

I forget to mention that you can just turn off the LED's from the software. Not as nice as having Amber of course, but certainly nicer than having blue!

This thing is quite compact, but it's amazing how small it becomes when you remove the bulky base.

guizai · 02-08-2007, 02:01 AM

Just in case anyone was wondering what was under the Black shiny black piece. Here it is. Mine fell off while being shipped. Think it would be lame if I put a BMW emblem there?

sama · 02-08-2007, 03:35 AM

I don't advise that!

_dopehead_ · 02-08-2007, 07:11 AM

put a Citroen emblem instead, bmw emblem will ruin the design :-)

MobiTekLink · 03-12-2007, 10:57 PM

Can you use this as a regular mouse??? I just want it to navigate and left click on the frontend mostly; I have a wireless keyboard if I need something else...
How is the product after a month's use???