Nanoleaf Aurora teardown

[yoshiguy]

Has anyone looked at the LED used for the nanoleaf ? Are they ws2812 with 1515?

[ryandetzel]

This is a great teardown, just go back from a friends house who had these and the "how" was bugging me all the way home. I first thought i2c when I saw the four wires so that's the circuit I have in my head now. For $20 panel they could put just about anything in there and make a profit.

[Hyperian]

Knowing from your post that the tiles speak RS232@24V, I built a simple crappy USB Interface using a cheap USB-to-RS232@3.3V Adapter and a voltage divider, a z-diode and a transistor.

Then I logged the traffic on a PC and slowly built up a simple protocol decoder in python. Finally, I replaced the original host tile and sent my own commands to figure out the details by trial and error.

Unfortunately there is no time sync. So you cannot change the color of multiple tiles at the same time...

I also have the rhythm extension. It enumerates similar to a normal tile, but returns a different version string. It just broadcasts the energy levels on different audio frequencies about 25 times/s. it is - very strange - not polled! But all the pattern and effects logic is in the original CPU tile. The rhythm tile is just a microphone + FFT. I’ll post the detailed protocol description soon.

Using a script that feeds the PCs sound output into a FFT and then emulating the rhythm tile, I get much better results for effects matching the sound than with the original mic.

I looked through your article, their addressing scheme seems to be very similar to SMBUS protocol, but custom made on top of UART instead of I2C. I'm willing to bet their address arbitration scheme is exactly the same as SMBUS.

There is probably a general call to tell all slaves to go through arbitration.
Then another general call command to tell all the devices to return their long IDs. (this will be repeated many times until there are no more IDs returned)
Then master will build up a table of Long IDs and short IDs.
Then master will use the command 0x01 to pass out the list of short IDs.

On subsequent bootups, it will just skip reading Long IDs and go straight into 0x01, assuming that slaves don't have non-volatile storage. I'm surprised they don't have CRC behind every command.

What happens if the tile connection creates a loop?

[mohammad]

what is the difference between longID and shortID?

[adrianliehner]

Hey, I am trying to recreating the Nanoleaf using an 3D printer and epoxide resin in combination with an esp8266 nodemcu board and ws2812b LEDs.
This is what Ive done so far: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3002866
Your Teardown did really help me, thank you!

[Hyperian]

what is the difference between longID and shortID?

LongID is used to initially set up the internal tree, shortID is then assigned to each LongID for normal communcation to change the panel color.

[eraz0r]

@kronoshacker
can you put your components for the interface together in a small eagle schematic?

thanks a lot!

[nomis]

Hi all.

Sorry, I am late to the party, but I recently bought me a set of nanoleaf aurora panels.

Some observations on this thread:

I kind of doubt that the panels use "smart" ws2812 style LEDs. Why would they? They can show only solid colors, ws2812-LEDs would be more useful if you want to display some sort of a gradient across the panel. If you don't want to do this regular RGB-LEDs are way cheaper.

Also there are suspiciously four groups of (probably) transistors visible in your photos - quite possibly for driving the RGBW channels (Q1-Q4).

Other than that: would you be willing to trace the four pins above the connector? (the ones you used to blow up the panel): I kind of suspect that this is a programming port for the BB10, making it possible to use pogo pins to update the firmware of a panel in its closed form.

Thanks,
        Simon

[cyntrex]

Hi everybody,

Does anyone have some of the new Nanoleaf Canvas tiles and would be willing to tear down one by any chance? I would be really interested in that. I'm wondering what they changed and how they arranged the LEDs as well as the diffusors in these panels.

Thanks,

Marvin

[nomis]

Ok, I bit the bullet and tore one open   

This is my current state of figuring out the schematics of an aurora panel.

There are a few uncertainties here.

* I could not figure out the exact type of the transistors. I've annotated some markings on the case but it is not at all clear what the model exactly is. Hence the unspecific drawing.

* The transistors for the LEDs (Q1-Q4) are marked "2X" and then a "F" rotated 90° to the left with two dots beneath it. I did not find the manufacturer using that Logo.

* The power regulator (marked "Y1") is unclear to me.

* Q4 = Red, Q3 = Blue, Q2 = Green, Q1 = White (EDIT: just tested it, my original assumptions were wrong and I have corrected them here)

* Yep, the four pins is the programming header.

* The µC unfortunately has some pads not accessible from the outside and I am not 100% sure if everything is assigned correctly. I am surprised in particular that apparently RX is not at Pin 17.

I appreciate any hints regarding these matters.

May this be of use to somebody 


Bye,
         Simon

[ben_r_]

Hi everybody,

Does anyone have some of the new Nanoleaf Canvas tiles and would be willing to tear down one by any chance? I would be really interested in that. I'm wondering what they changed and how they arranged the LEDs as well as the diffusors in these panels.

Thanks,

Marvin

Yea Id love to see how the square ones are laid out inside! Thatd be more interesting to me.

[flowirin]

I would like to make an Arduino or ESP8266 project out of this. Anyone interested?

I've signed up to this forum just to answer "yes" to your question.

I'd be very interested in an arduino or ESP8266 project.

I have these panels but the software form nanoleaf is beyond atrocious (pairing is borked) and I'd really like to be able to run the panels some other way!

[drakejest]

I also have the rhythm extension. It enumerates similar to a normal tile, but returns a different version string. It just broadcasts the energy levels on different audio frequencies about 25 times/s. it is - very strange - not polled! But all the pattern and effects logic is in the original CPU tile. The rhythm tile is just a microphone + FFT. I’ll post the detailed protocol description soon.

Using a script that feeds the PCs sound output into a FFT and then emulating the rhythm tile, I get much better results for effects matching the sound than with the original mic.

Please share a board pictue of the rhythm module. I would really like to see the inside and how they do the rhythm functionality

[MemoryBytes]

Hey,
Great teardown, I learned a lot of things. Do you have the measurements for the LED strips i.e. how long are they, how far apart are each white and rgb led. I also wanted to ask, is there a way I could get an LED strip similar to that?

[Uandr]

Hello, I am very interested in the dimensions of the internal components in the panels
such as "On top sits a thick transparent block of plastic with a regular hole pattern" and the dimensions of the diode pad
Thank you

[stefdc91]

Hello, Excuse me for my language, I hope you can help me.
This chip (arrow) burned out in my nanoleaf controller. Is it possible to fix it? or should you buy the controller new?

[gamalot]

Hello, Excuse me for my language, I hope you can help me.
This chip (arrow) burned out in my nanoleaf controller. Is it possible to fix it? or should you buy the controller new?

This is all I could find: https://www.yoycart.com/Product/568480180878/

It's a MP2451

https://www.monolithicpower.com/en/documentview/productdocument/index/version/2/document_type/Datasheet/lang/en/sku/MP2451/document_id/253

[Xmen06]

Hello all,
Thanks for the teardown Laurent.
I have broken the controller connector  of my  nanoleaf aurora.
Do you have all the pin on the motherboard to solder another connector.
Regards