The Wand Company TOS Tricorder is coming!
- Thread starter Jediwannabe
- Start date
Fordsparks
New Member
Thank you! This thread is …fascinating.Welcome…..
Where the hell were you day’s ago….
Peace
Tried over and over to order one of these like a lot of folks- missed Startrek.com but nabbed one on IGN and then, being busy, sort of forgot about it! Was surprised when they shipped early.
Still busy, and it’s still in the box!
Anyway I can tell this is a great community-lots of very knowledgeable folks.
FANATICO
Sr Member
If I may Columbo you for a moment……..
So this placement is out in your opinion…..because there’s no room between the main PCB mounted (hypothetically) to the back side of the facia panel and the moire/discs bank right? It’s tight…
But as pictured below without the facial panel, at all ( discarded never to be used again or at least until wand activates the SDMC)….would this not give room for all the main PCB cables to hang towards the back with room to route cables (even extended) in general?
( the connectors as seen are openly accessible)
You and I are thinking in different directions to achieve the same goal……your parallel support is much appreciated.
So this placement is out in your opinion…..because there’s no room between the main PCB mounted (hypothetically) to the back side of the facia panel and the moire/discs bank right? It’s tight…
But as pictured below without the facial panel, at all ( discarded never to be used again or at least until wand activates the SDMC)….would this not give room for all the main PCB cables to hang towards the back with room to route cables (even extended) in general?
( the connectors as seen are openly accessible)
You and I are thinking in different directions to achieve the same goal……your parallel support is much appreciated.
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FANATICO
Sr Member
So far it’s been reverse/forward engineering on the fly…..much focus to display content on the LCD.
What was your plan to address and tap into the Audio function to play through the Tricorder speaker and or extended the Audio through Bluetooth to the communicator speaker?
Something to think about Ayyyyyyyyye?
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If the lower compartment is going to be used, it would be neat if the electronics or ‘video drive section’ could be hidden within a faux science scanner.
This could even be modular, with different scanners incorporating various electronic functions that could be easily swapped out when needed.
This could even be modular, with different scanners incorporating various electronic functions that could be easily swapped out when needed.
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2vix
Member
If the goal is to hide the main pcb and its cables behind the moire compartment - It CAN be done i think. I'll walk through how I'd do it:
Look here see this small empty area
if I flip the pcb upside down and backwards from how I have it in the earlier pic, the wire connector ports fit nicely in that empty area and there's probably enough room to connect the wires, which could then exit the moire compartment via the cable passage on the aluminum side piece or down through the roof of the lower compartment.
You end up with this:
Now the pcb board is almost recessed below the aluminum side plates, and the back door just about closes without touching... except for the MicroSD slot. It sticks up a wee bit, but I think if someone went this far with it, then a bit of hex-pattern removal would almost for sure allow the door to close.
2vix
Member
If the Video Drive Section components can be small enough, It would be cool to have them contained inside a hollow 3d printed scanner-case
2vix
Member
I cant believe it but I actually found the 2 pcbs I would need to make the tricorder display work as a single monitor for the tricorder UI and the video drive.
1 RGB888 to HDMI converter
2 HDMI to RGB888 converter
1 RGB888 to HDMI converter
2 HDMI to RGB888 converter
FANATICO
Sr Member
FANATICO
Sr Member
2vix
Member
This one's easy, I think.
Since the Pi has Bluetooth, the audio will just play from the Communicator once I pair it to the Pi. Done.
For the tricorder, I have to give its speaker the ability to play from Bluetooth just like the Communicator.
So check out this bite sized little board:
All I think I need to do is splice the tricorders 2 speaker wires into one of the RCA ports on it, power it, and connect it just like the Communicator. I think this little pcb will fit in beside the moire motor, which is right where the speaker and its 2 wires are located
Originally i was like "NO. Without the communicator YOU GET NO SOUND." because i wanted this unholy trinity to NEED the communicator just like i wanted it to NEED the phaser to 'hit play' so to speak. But then the more i thought about it i realized that when this project is complete i will probably have the tricorder on my desk on one side of my monitor and the communicator on the other side, so i can have it playing while im doing stuff on the computer. So having audio coming from the left and right like 2 speakers on a desk seems better ya?
FANATICO
Sr Member
Ya ……
I’m going to assume you’ll remove the connectors and solder directly to the pads……and reposition if possible…the antenna if it interferes where your mounting it…..
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2vix
Member
I spent the evening reading up how a microcontroller like the one in our tricorders is able to play a video from an SD card on its display, and folks... its crazy. Since it cant just straight up play an AVI or MP4 or MKV video file because of how limited it is, the microcontroller needs a format that's uncompressed and easy to play. I googled around for a bit and found almost everyone with a STM32 chip like ours uses a pixel format called RGB-565 for their video storage & playback.
But the trade off is A CRAZY HUGE FILE. I went ahead and converted a video file into this format just to see if I could, and it came out the other end 50 TIMES bigger than the original video! And it didn't even have sound! Sound needs to be yet another file added later. Why so big you ask? I wondered the same thing. In my experience, the larger a video file is - the more work (processing power, memory etc) it takes to play it. But this pixel format works in reverse, essentially trading file size for bypassing the need for video decoding. When I read this it occurred to me that since my tricorder wasn't built to play 4k blurays, it made sense that most programmers use a method like this that's un-demanding. But what's making it so big? Its because the video has been turned into a folder full of .raw files. What's a raw file? Google says its a file that tells each pixel on the display what color it should be. That's right, it just screams "Be color 875020079!" or whatever at every pixel over and over and over again, literally. And it needs a file like this for each frame in the video. I used the intro from "The Mark Of Gideon" for my test. I love the scene where Kirk goes to the bridge and its empty...
This cold open is 3 minutes and 24 seconds long, and so at 24 frames per second its 4,896 frames, which is exactly how many files were in my folder when the conversion finished. 5000 files! So I did the math:
80 episodes of The Original Series. 50ish minutes per episode. 24 frames per second.
Ya, its just about 6 million files.
And since each file has data for each pixel:
the screen size on the tricorder is 320 x 240. 320x240 is 76,800.
Ya, its 450 billion pixel instructions.
How big of an SD card would I need to fit all 80 episodes, broken down into 6 million files? About 992GB!
Why does any of this matter?
Just in case one day our tricorders can play files from their SD slot, here's how to convert a video into this madness and put it onto an SD card
-Convert a video file (using handbrake HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder or whatever) to .mp4 with a video resolution of 320x240 and MONO audio at 16,000Hz. Instructions are out there if you don't know how to do this already. Name the video "video".
-Create a folder on your C: drive and name it "tricorder", then move your video.mp4 file there. (C:\tricorder\video.mp4)
-Create a folder called "video" and place it in the tricorder folder. (C:\tricorder\video)
-Yes this tricorder folder should now have an empty folder named "video" beside an MP4 video file also named "video".
-Install ffmpeg. Download FFmpeg Instructions are out there on how to install it. Its weird but easy to use.
-Open a command prompt window and type out the following command (or copy it from here and paste it) and then hit enter:
ffmpeg -i C:\tricorder\video.mp4 -vf scale=320:240,format=rgb565 -r 24000/1001 -f image2 "C:\tricorder\video\frame_%04d.raw"
-The video folder should now be full of .RAW files
-Next go back to the command prompt window and type this in and hit enter:
ffmpeg -i C:\tricorder\video.mp4 -ar 16000 -ac 1 -vn "C:\tricorder\video\audio.wav"
-You should now have a folder named "video" in C:\tricorder that contains all your .RAW files and a single .WAV file.
-Put this video folder on an Micro SD-card formatted to FAT32.
In my mind this format works kind of like a projector running through a film reel full of frames. It has that old school, analog feel to it, which I think would suit the tricorder.
But the trade off is A CRAZY HUGE FILE. I went ahead and converted a video file into this format just to see if I could, and it came out the other end 50 TIMES bigger than the original video! And it didn't even have sound! Sound needs to be yet another file added later. Why so big you ask? I wondered the same thing. In my experience, the larger a video file is - the more work (processing power, memory etc) it takes to play it. But this pixel format works in reverse, essentially trading file size for bypassing the need for video decoding. When I read this it occurred to me that since my tricorder wasn't built to play 4k blurays, it made sense that most programmers use a method like this that's un-demanding. But what's making it so big? Its because the video has been turned into a folder full of .raw files. What's a raw file? Google says its a file that tells each pixel on the display what color it should be. That's right, it just screams "Be color 875020079!" or whatever at every pixel over and over and over again, literally. And it needs a file like this for each frame in the video. I used the intro from "The Mark Of Gideon" for my test. I love the scene where Kirk goes to the bridge and its empty...
This cold open is 3 minutes and 24 seconds long, and so at 24 frames per second its 4,896 frames, which is exactly how many files were in my folder when the conversion finished. 5000 files! So I did the math:
80 episodes of The Original Series. 50ish minutes per episode. 24 frames per second.
Ya, its just about 6 million files.
And since each file has data for each pixel:
the screen size on the tricorder is 320 x 240. 320x240 is 76,800.
Ya, its 450 billion pixel instructions.
How big of an SD card would I need to fit all 80 episodes, broken down into 6 million files? About 992GB!
Why does any of this matter?
Just in case one day our tricorders can play files from their SD slot, here's how to convert a video into this madness and put it onto an SD card
-Convert a video file (using handbrake HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder or whatever) to .mp4 with a video resolution of 320x240 and MONO audio at 16,000Hz. Instructions are out there if you don't know how to do this already. Name the video "video".
-Create a folder on your C: drive and name it "tricorder", then move your video.mp4 file there. (C:\tricorder\video.mp4)
-Create a folder called "video" and place it in the tricorder folder. (C:\tricorder\video)
-Yes this tricorder folder should now have an empty folder named "video" beside an MP4 video file also named "video".
-Install ffmpeg. Download FFmpeg Instructions are out there on how to install it. Its weird but easy to use.
-Open a command prompt window and type out the following command (or copy it from here and paste it) and then hit enter:
ffmpeg -i C:\tricorder\video.mp4 -vf scale=320:240,format=rgb565 -r 24000/1001 -f image2 "C:\tricorder\video\frame_%04d.raw"
-The video folder should now be full of .RAW files
-Next go back to the command prompt window and type this in and hit enter:
ffmpeg -i C:\tricorder\video.mp4 -ar 16000 -ac 1 -vn "C:\tricorder\video\audio.wav"
-You should now have a folder named "video" in C:\tricorder that contains all your .RAW files and a single .WAV file.
-Put this video folder on an Micro SD-card formatted to FAT32.
In my mind this format works kind of like a projector running through a film reel full of frames. It has that old school, analog feel to it, which I think would suit the tricorder.
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Simonized
Well-Known Member
Tried ... mine is in solid so it's either glue it from the outsides to prevent it moving or take the aluminum panels off lol.
Technoboots
Well-Known Member
The friction on yours may be higher. Mine is a lot easier to take out now than it was originally due to how many times I've adjusted it. Just made a video showing how it should come out. I was using a T3 torx bit for it.
The rod grips at 4 points in the door. At the sides and inside there are 2 raised sections which are about 1mm wide. It is not flush the whole length which probably puts more pressure on those points.
FANATICO
Sr Member
I spent the evening reading up how a microcontroller like the one in our tricorders is able to play a video from an SD card on its display, and folks... its crazy. Since it cant just straight up play an AVI or MP4 or MKV video file because of how limited it is, the microcontroller needs a format that's uncompressed and easy to play. I googled around for a bit and found almost everyone with a STM32 chip like ours uses a pixel format called RGB-565 for their video storage & playback.
But the trade off is A CRAZY HUGE FILE. I went ahead and converted a video file into this format just to see if I could, and it came out the other end 50 TIMES bigger than the original video! And it didn't even have sound! Sound needs to be yet another file added later. Why so big you ask? I wondered the same thing. In my experience, the larger a video file is - the more work (processing power, memory etc) it takes to play it. But this pixel format works in reverse, essentially trading file size for bypassing the need for video decoding. When I read this it occurred to me that since my tricorder wasn't built to play 4k blurays, it made sense that most programmers use a method like this that's un-demanding. But what's making it so big? Its because the video has been turned into a folder full of .raw files. What's a raw file? Google says its a file that tells each pixel on the display what color it should be. That's right, it just screams "Be color 875020079!" or whatever at every pixel over and over and over again, literally. And it needs a file like this for each frame in the video. I used the intro from "The Mark Of Gideon" for my test. I love the scene where Kirk goes to the bridge and its empty...
View attachment 1957996
This cold open is 3 minutes and 24 seconds long, and so at 24 frames per second its 4,896 frames, which is exactly how many files were in my folder when the conversion finished. 5000 files! So I did the math:
80 episodes of The Original Series. 50ish minutes per episode. 24 frames per second.
Ya, its just about 6 million files.
And since each file has data for each pixel:
the screen size on the tricorder is 320 x 240. 320x240 is 76,800.
Ya, its 450 billion pixel instructions.
How big of an SD card would I need to fit all 80 episodes, broken down into 6 million files? About 992GB!
Why does any of this matter?
Just in case one day our tricorders can play files from their SD slot, here's how to convert a video into this madness and put it onto an SD card
-Convert a video file (using handbrake HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder or whatever) to .mp4 with a video resolution of 320x240 and MONO audio at 16,000Hz. Instructions are out there if you don't know how to do this already. Name the video "video".
-Create a folder on your C: drive and name it "tricorder", then move your video.mp4 file there. (C:\tricorder\video.mp4)
-Create a folder called "video" and place it in the tricorder folder. (C:\tricorder\video)
-Yes this tricorder folder should now have an empty folder named "video" beside an MP4 video file also named "video".
-Install ffmpeg. Download FFmpeg Instructions are out there on how to install it. Its weird but easy to use.
-Open a command prompt window and type out the following command (or copy it from here and paste it) and then hit enter:
ffmpeg -i C:\tricorder\video.mp4 -vf scale=320:240,format=rgb565 -r 24000/1001 -f image2 "C:\tricorder\video\frame_%04d.raw"
-The video folder should now be full of .RAW files
-Next go back to the command prompt window and type this in and hit enter:
ffmpeg -i C:\tricorder\video.mp4 -ar 16000 -ac 1 -vn "C:\tricorder\video\audio.wav"
-You should now have a folder named "video" in C:\tricorder that contains all your .RAW files and a single .WAV file.
-Put this video folder on an Micro SD-card formatted to FAT32.
In my mind this format works kind of like a projector running through a film reel full of frames. It has that old school, analog feel to it, which I think would suit the tricorder.
Whoa Nellie….Whoa girl…..let’s slowdown a wee bit Lassie ….
You see this 32Gb Micro SD card plugged into the side of my 65” flat panel TV using a USB-A adapter?
Perhaps you came on the scene (this thread) after……
Sometime ago I made that and have been playing it essentially as my own Star Trek Channel… commercial and dvd menu Freeeeeeee . That chip has regular 3 full seasons, 7 movies, and two animated seasons all of it STTOS (except for the one Picard episode) and all of it is …MP4 320x240….
What else is needed from where I’m already at…that you can provide with a spaced step by step 1), 2), 3), etc….to eventually get the MSDC slot on the tric to read and play those files I already created? What would the GUI menu look like on the tric once the card is inserted. How would I select individual, or play all episodes …..on the tric?
Btw….the 320x240 resolution on my 65” flat panel is quite good imo….
So is the bottom line is …….the tric will only be able to process RAW files once the sdcard slot is activated for the general user??
So then all I have to do is convert my MP4 files through a RAW converter?
A possible hiccup …. a limitation in the external memory capacity the tric can accept.
For instance it may not read msdc cards greater than 128gb, 256gb, etc……hell maybe not even 8gb.
For me, I may have to break up my 32Gb card ST library to multiple sd cards…..
….to meet what Wand placed as an external memory capacity limit.
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2vix
Member
Unfortunatly I cant provide a guide to enable the MSDC slot. That needs to come from TWC in a firmware update, or someone needs to get into the current firmware and get the slot working.
I dont know. Playing raw video frames on a STM32 microcontroller involves writing firmware that reads the raw RGB565 frames from the SD card. From what ive read, its not difficult. Im able to play back the RAW video file I created on my PC using a simple one-line instruction in command prompt. If I had all 80 episodes converted to this format, I would just make sure my folders are named what the episode is named eg. "C:\tricorder\Amok Time" instead of "C:\tricorder\video"
We will need the SD card slot activated before any of this is will work. and im not saying it will only be able to process RAW files. Like I said in my earlier post - most developers using a STM32 chip like ours use RGB565 for their video storage & playback. We know this processor has audio troubles when playing that MJPEG format, so Im really just guessing that this will be the way to do it because this is usually how developers do it.
Yes
FANATICO
Sr Member
Unfortunatly I cant provide a guide to enable the MSDC slot. That needs to come from TWC in a firmware update, or someone needs to get into the current firmware and get the slot working.
I dont know. Playing raw video frames on a STM32 microcontroller involves writing firmware that reads the raw RGB565 frames from the SD card. From what ive read, its not difficult. Im able to play back the RAW video file I created on my PC using a simple one-line instruction in command prompt. If I had all 80 episodes converted to this format, I would just make sure my folders are named what the episode is named eg. "C:\tricorder\Amok Time" instead of "C:\tricorder\video"
We will need the SD card slot activated before any of this is will work. and im not saying it will only be able to process RAW files. Like I said in my earlier post - most developers using a STM32 chip like ours use RGB565 for their video storage & playback. We know this processor has audio troubles when playing that MJPEG format, so Im really just guessing that this will be the way to do it because this is usually how developers do it.
Yes
IFFFFF……it turns out to be that Wand can ONLY read RAW files…..
From the Gooooooooog
…..”Raw files have the largest file sizes due to their uncompressed or minimally processed nature. MP4 files have smaller file sizes compared to raw files as they employ compression techniques to reduce storage requirements.”….
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