OFFICIAL Logitech G15, mods and LCD stuff.

I just wrote a little application to get temperatures from Motherboard Monitor V5.3.7.0 (http://mbm.livewiredev.com) and show it on the G15 lcd.

Getting the temperatures from MBM works fine for me, my problem is still, that I don't have a G15 to test the display stuff. It would be great, if someone could help me getting the LCDMon.exe and lgLcdAPI.dll, or better the whole G15 software.

If someone owns a G15 and uses MBM, you can try my program at your own risk: LCD.exe (172 KB)
It doesn't yet show the temperature as text, you have to count the number of lines displayed on the lcd. :p

I would love some feedback to decide how to continue with this project ...
 
Farseer said:
Here are the complied versions of the SDK samples if anyone would like to try a few more demo apps. I just compiled the samples as they are. The errors in EZLCDWrapper were because a target Windows version was not declared, and the error in Framework was because you have to define the app name.

ewarz: Just gab the samples and place them on your site when you get a chance.
cool thanks. im gonna add the samples and SDK now.



Jannik said:
Thanks ewarz for http://www.g15mods.com, a forum there would be nice.
a simple forum is definatly coming soon!



Jannik said:
I just wrote a little application to get temperatures from Motherboard Monitor V5.3.7.0 (http://mbm.livewiredev.com) and show it on the G15 lcd.

Getting the temperatures from MBM works fine for me, my problem is still, that I don't have a G15 to test the display stuff. It would be great, if someone could help me getting the LCDMon.exe and lgLcdAPI.dll, or better the whole G15 software.

If someone owns a G15 and uses MBM, you can try my program at your own risk: LCD.exe (172 KB)
It doesn't yet show the temperature as text, you have to count the number of lines displayed on the lcd. :p

I would love some feedback to decide how to continue with this project ...
man i wish i can test this out for ya but im not at home.
 
ChingChang said:
yeah, cause it would be completely useless to see how hot the computer was while gaming at resolutions under 1920x1200... :rolleyes:


why would it be useless?
 
I could test it out, but I current use Speedfan on my P5AD2. I will install MBM and play with the exe.

I get and update in your EXE window, but neither my test program, or the actual LCD get any data.

Your command "lgLCDUpdateBitmap" says Success, but nothing displays on my LCD.

Odd.
 
I agree. That was the reason I created it. I saw 3 or 4 posts about the keyboard before I even owned one. Then I got one the next day, and about 5 or 6 more posts appeared.

I thought I'd "nip it in the bud" before it got out of hand, and create a central location for all the HG15 info in 1 single post.

On the other hand, I can see why they wouldn't want to sticky it. It is just a single piece of hardware that only a small percentage H readers have or plan to buy.
 
That MBM program only displays a bunch of vertical lines in the upper left hand corner of the
LCD for me.



Edit: nevermind, I misread the part of your post where it says I have to count the lines -_-
 
Ok so I took the plunge and bought one of these finally, what's sad is that I didn't even know they were available yet, I first saw it when they released it at Kyle's workshop in August and I was like WHOA! I want one of those!

I wasn't able to find one anywhere online, and the closest Best Buy that had one was over an hour away. I ended up going to get it after work and I am glad I did. This is undoubtedly the best keyboard I have ever owned. I can't wait to see the LCD at it's fullest potential.

Definitely a cool piece of hardware.
 
on the lcd_bmp.exe program, would it be too hard to have it cycle several different xxx.txt files?

Say, count to 90, then show next xx.txt?

Just wondering, it works nicely to fill the screen with symbols and 1-bit images, cycling several through would kind of finish it off IMO.
 
Dgephri said:
on the lcd_bmp.exe program, would it be too hard to have it cycle several different xxx.txt files?

Say, count to 90, then show next xx.txt?

Just wondering, it works nicely to fill the screen with symbols and 1-bit images, cycling several through would kind of finish it off IMO.
You and I think alike! ;) That's actually what I am working on for version 2, except I am want to setup an actual configuration screen where you can click a Browse button and use a file menu to select the "actual" bitmaps. I plan on allowing four bitmaps that will be associated with the four softbuttons below the screen. Then you can either use the buttons to change the bitmaps, or just set a rotation timer of your choosing. Now, if I could only find that time to get it done.
 
Sweeeeet. Then we can show [H], PDXLAN, and some other stuff too!

I'm happy to be a testing guinea pig since I know Zippo about C++.

Oh, and could you enable the "window=false" line before you compile it? I don't have the right library to recompile it for some reason. Dev C++ isn't cooperating. :(
 
i was just over there...very helpful...got it up and running showing net up/down and Netadapter ID.

Takes a little tinkering, but isn't that why we are here?

GJ. My thanks.
 
i finally got permanent hosting settled for www.g15mods.com and a forum up. please feel free to share any ideas, comments, and criticism. thanks guys.
 
Is the software being weird for anyone else? Usually it's either the g-keys work, or the LCD will show winamp track info, never both.
 
burningspirithc said:
Is the software being weird for anyone else? Usually it's either the g-keys work, or the LCD will show winamp track info, never both.

In true Logitech fashion, the software is buggy as hell. Here are the bugs I have come accross:

  1. Keyboard loses connection and displays a blank screen. To fix, unplug it and replug it in.
  2. Media Player display does not function if upgrading WMP. To fix, first try to kill the process called LCDMedia.exe and restart it from the LCD Control Panel. If that doesn't fix it, remove and reinstall Logitech keyboard Software.
  3. Play/Pause and Stop buttons do not control WMP unless WMP is in focus. Forward and Back work properly with WMP in the background though. EDIT: Seems to be only affected by having Opera as the focused window. Other programs such as WinExplorer don't cause this.
  4. Macros Recorded occasionally do not get stored in the profile. To fix, re-record them. If it works once, they will stay.
  5. And finally, not a bug, but just annoying, different Logitech software doesn't integrate with other Logitech software such as Setpoint for my MX 1000. Why have two control panels, one for the G-16 and one for the MX 1000?

Bottom line is there is nothing major wrong so far that I have experienced that I haven't been able to fix or work around. It's a shame that Logitech doesn't spend the time or have the quality that nVidia or ATI has with their drivers and software. Can you imagine either nVidia or ATI drivers/software being this buggy? I sometimes wonder if Creative and Logitech have the same driver/software engineers.

And the Logitech forums? What kind of forums are those? Talk about suckage. I guess we get used to real forums like HardOCP and the numerous clan forums running vBulletin and phBBB that seeing crap forums like Logitech's is a shock.
 
This actually makes me want to pursue programming more. I don't know why but it does.

More on the topic, is it possible to make a rotating bitmap feature? For example have it display one bitmap for a few seconds, then display another bitmap after that.

I'm waiting to see a screensaver function for that thing. Last thing we need is pixels burned in. hehe.

The panel is not a color display, right? I just wanna confirm that cause the PDXLAN pic makes it look like it does with the way it goes from blue to red. But every other one shows just white with a blue (I'm assuming that's supposed to be black?)
 
Thanks @TheGamerZ for testing my little app. Showing those lines is exactly, what it should do. :D
Next step is to show the temperature as text ... maybe I did it already. :rolleyes:
But I'll continue further development in the forum of http://www.g15mods.com , C U there!

Jannik
 
that PDXLAN pic (I think I can explain my own photo) is likely a mixture of:
1.) no flash-didn't want the backlight to get drowned out, so the camera pics up a little of the red focus beam
2.) re-sizing-coming down from 7.2MP to 1024X, then to photobucket, maybe got a little color shift in JPEG
3.) the polarized film that most LCDs have to clarify the view?
4.) the angle (not quite 90) that I took the pic at...with Macro function on.

Just guessing. It is 1-bit, no question there. Black, or off. :)
 
Alright, I'm pretty sure the software is making my comp crash. It kept crashing last night so I uninstalled it and my comps fine now. Am I just being dumb or did i get a defective cd or soemthing?
 
A pretty cool Winamp plugin script was posted at http://www.g15forums.com

winamp.jpg
 
FunctionX said:
A pretty cool Winamp plugin script was posted at http://www.g15forums.com

winamp.jpg

dude, thanks for posting the link, but you don't have to whore it out
 
I saw that over at the boards this morning. It works pretty well, but their framerate on the graph is a little fast for the G15.
 
Lots of good stuff for this keyboard nowdays.

So far the ones I am using are:

Network Bandwidth Monitor
Teamspeak Display
Winamp Spectrum Analyser
FRAPS

Go check the www.g15forums.com for more info and where to download them.
 
posted up at the G15forums site, but I thought I would share here too:

paintlayer1.jpg


paint-complete-1.jpg


paint-complete-2.jpg


greenLCD-1.jpg


Trimmer added to LEDs, fresh paint, green LCD, mirror backing to lightplate, and yellow film to change backlight green-ish.
 
Dgephri said:
posted up at the G15forums site, but I thought I would share here too:

Trimmer added to LEDs, fresh paint, green LCD, mirror backing to lightplate, and yellow film to change backlight green-ish.

That looks sick!! Good job, I'd love do to the same thing but red or blue, did you use standard spray paint or professional bodyshop car paint with spray gun and all that?
 
rattle cans-Krylon Fusion brand, just careful thought to how I wanted the Fade effect to look.

First one I've actually done, and I'm pretty happy with the result.

And thanks for thinking I may have used pro tools to do it! :)
 
damn killer work man. how many coats did you apply, and did you add a clear coat?

SarverSystems said:
Any pics of the keyboard with the top off? And pics of the LCD without the housing?
hmmm... that would be awesome if we can swap in a better lcd...
 
Paint- One coat of each in fade, the Fusion claims to need no primer, and then a clear coat of Krylon clear since I was happy with the result. I didn't want to build up too much paint since it could have affected the movement of the keys, I wanted the paint to land in the backlight surround as well.

Components/Assembly--I took 50+ pics during the breakdown, and will be compiling them into a Guide at G15forums.

It may take a couple days-a week, lots to cover!

I can safely say that the LCD is very thin, it did not appear to have a changeable backlight or LED...it was integrated into the back. I thought about an MX6 bare PLED, but there is only about 4mm there for the LCD itself.

More to come.
 
Anyone attempted to change the backlighting color of the keys themselves, I've opened my keyboard up before and it seems easy enough in theroy (im thinking of changing the G keys to green, F keys to red, numpad to yellow or something...) By cutting the plexi and adding additional leds, the only thing that would get in the way is where to get the power from because I bet that little red/black wire only supports the 11 LEDS in there currently...
 
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