Can you change the backlight LEDs on the URC-8910?

Ellen · Post by **Ellen** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 5:16 am

Maybe the URC-8810s are old stock then, which is certainly possible. Al I can say (and this is not mere speculation) is that after a certain point, all new OFA remotes that used to come with the gren backlight now come with the red backlight. I believe this was a cost saving thing as red LEDs are cheaper (for some reason) than green LEDs.

Has anyone looked into changing out the LEDs that provide the backlighting? LEDs come in several different colors and would be pretty cheap for an end user to swap. But I don't have one of the newer remotes and have not seen the internals to know whether or not the LED is easily accessible.

johann83 · Post by **johann83** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 9:02 am

Ellen wrote:Has anyone looked into changing out the LEDs that provide the backlighting? LEDs come in several different colors and would be pretty cheap for an end user to swap. But I don't have one of the newer remotes and have not seen the internals to know whether or not the LED is easily accessible.

Well, I have never personally seen the inside of one of these remotes with the LED backlight, but if I understand it correctly, they use a series of small LEDs scattered around the circuit board. While it technically would be possible to swap out the LEDs, they are very small surface mount components and you would have to pretty seriously skilled with a soldering iron to do it without messing something up.

Personally, I think I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, and I have attempted to replace some 0603 (0.06" L x 0.03" W) surface mount resistors in the past at work, but I didn't do a very good job. It takes a good soldering iron, a steady hand, and a microscope to really do that sort of thing correctly, so I would recommend leaving it to the pros.

wwwoholic · Post by **wwwoholic** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:01 am

johann83 wrote:Personally, I think I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, and I have attempted to replace some 0603 (0.06" L x 0.03" W) surface mount resistors in the past at work, but I didn't do a very good job. It takes a good soldering iron, a steady hand, and a microscope to really do that sort of thing correctly, so I would recommend leaving it to the pros.

I would expect them to be 0805 or even 1206, which makes soldering somewhat manageable.

johann83 · Post by **johann83** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 10:14 am

wwwoholic wrote:I would expect them to be 0805 or even 1206, which makes soldering somewhat manageable.

True, certainly, but still relatively small surface mount components which are not easily soldered by your typical JP1 user. Actually I'd be curious to see inside one of these remotes to see what they have. I'll have to check the pics folder at Yahoo and see if anyone has posted a picture.

Matt

Post by **The Robman** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 2:14 pm

I have seen the insides of these remotes and the coloured LEDs are indeed very small, but I haven't measured them to confirm the exact size.

I'm pretty sure that I'm handy enough with a soldering iron to be able to swap them out, but it would take a while as there's probably 7 or 8 of them in there.

I can't imagine anyone offering to do it for a fee because it just wouldn't be cost effective. My guess is it would take the best part of an hour to do the swap on one remote. But hey, I might just try doing it once to see how hard it is.

wwwoholic · Post by **wwwoholic** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 3:26 pm

The Robman wrote:I have seen the insides of these remotes and the coloured LEDs are indeed very small, but I haven't measured them to confirm the exact size.

My guess they are spread evenly to provide equal brightness. However if they can be grouped according to button "type" then it might be interesting to use different colors for different groups. Christmas Remote, anybody?

Ellen · Post by **Ellen** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 6:02 pm

I guess I never imagined that the LEDs would be of the surface mount variety

wwwoholic, I like your idea for different color LEDs for certain key groupings.

If any of you guys do try it, please let us know how it goes.

Post by **The Robman** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 7:51 pm

OK folks, here's a shot of the PCB from a URC-8011. The backlight LEDs are circled in red. There are 10 of them.

Mark Pierson · Post by **Mark Pierson** » Tue Jan 06, 2004 8:09 pm

The Robman wrote:here's a shot of the PCB from a URC-8011

When can we see the "after" picture!

wwwoholic · Post by **wwwoholic** » Wed Jan 07, 2004 12:24 am

Mark Pierson wrote:When can we see the "after" picture!

Next Christmas? With multi-color LEDs it will make great tree top decoration for JP1 guru's house.

Seriously, they are too small for most people's abilities, including mine. What's even more important, some of them are close to button contacts. A little overheat can peel them or make substantially less reliable.