My final smart hoop tear-down and techincal review (until I get my hands on more hoops to dissect) is on the Proton Labs Helix. These notes were made in mid-2014 on what I believe to be a fairly current hoop, but I cant say that its the most recent model. This particular hoop measured 34 inside and weighed in at 14.7 oz (HDPE), definitely on the heavy side. 6.25 oz of this was internal components, mostly the batteries - my notes say 3, but looking back Im pretty sure there were 4 - 10430 ICR Li-ion rechargeable batteries rated at 320 mAh each. Each of the batteries has a protection circuit for safety, which is an improvement over some of the other internal battery hoops on the market. The hoop is collapsible and has a distinctive 4 coupler made from curved carbon fiber. It means a minimum 4 gap in the LEDs, but it makes a smooth connection and its STRONG. You will break something else before you break this coupler. Its a custom-fabricated item and shows that the Helixs engineering is on a higher level than most of the smart hoops Ive disassembled. The coupler is attached by a pop rivet, which makes disassembly a bit of a pain. Its not the prettiest hoop when its turned off; this particular hoop at least showed a lot of irregular alternating light and dark areas. Theres a micro USB cable in the end of the carbon fiber coupler, so its well-protected. A JST charging connector also protrudes from the opening; the hoop charges with the same kind of external Li-ion charger used for R/C cars and planes. I noticed a considerable amount of rattle. The tail end of the LED string wasnt attached to anything, so when rotated back and forth quickly it had a bit of slop. It may make the LED string more resilient since its not going to be stretched no matter how much the hoop is squashed, but I felt like the movement might be annoying when doing breaks. Inside I found 4 separate circuit boards: Controller, button board, USB board, and power control board. The controller was based around an Atmel ATMEGA328P, a popular 20 MHz 8-bit MCU found on many Arduino boards, though Im not sure if this board is based on Arduino software. A 64 KB EEPROM stores presets that can be loaded via USB. Two buttons and a power switch control the hoop, allowing selection of banks and modes. Accidentally hitting buttons while hooping seems to be a common complaint and I can see how that might easily happen. Ive seen a few Helix hoops with bits of foam tape around the button holes to make them harder to press accidentally. The LED strip is an LPD8806 type, and I measured the frame rate at about 636 frames/second - the fastest Ive seen on any hoop so far. The strip is secured using what appears to be black weather stripping foam. Its squishy and dark and pretty heavy. Bands of white electrical tape secure the foam and LED strip. The PC customization software is well done. It connects to the hoop via USB (theres an FTDI USB UART chip that provides a serial link to the controller) and you can edit 16 presets for each of the modes - I believe this hoop had 15 modes, though theres memory for at least 16 modes. The modes are pre-programmed and each take a set of parameters. For example, the first mode is solid color and the only available parameter is the color. Other modes are more complicated, but customization is confined to the provided parameters in the existing modes. You can edit parameters while the hoop is running, so you get immediate feedback on what your changes are doing. This is not a hoop Id want to have to disassemble and service, and in fact I never got mine back together again, but the electronics are done well and the software was pretty painless, though I did have to unplug several other devices that the software initially mistook for hoops.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 05:14:35 +0000
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