Update eink waveform

[tccsargent]

Dear Lord Nibbler- I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you have a cracked screen. There is nothing wrong with your waveform. Look for a very small triangular crack near the lower left corner of your screen, possibly concealed by the ribbon cable. This is irreparable; you must acquire a new screen.

[pdurrant]

My son's Kindle Keyboard 3G is now working reasonably well with a cheap screen from china. It didn't have the chip on the cable, so I knew it wasn't going to be perfect, but it was very cheap. I was careful to not disconnect the battery, thanks to montalex's post, so whatever was loaded from the old screen is still there. I've also kept the old ribbon cable in case i need it for future repairs.

There's a little ghosting, but it's perfectly useable. Perhaps one day I'll pick up a proper Kindle screen and fix it properly, thanks to the really useful info in this thread. Thanks all!

[Stravouguine]

Hello

The grays in my kindle are gone.
I never altered my kindle in any way. My screen worked fine and looks fine even now, the exception is the grays being gone.
Never let my battery run out completely.
But after my last charge it all went to hell.
I can still read because the font is black in color, but the turn of the pages have more ghosting (I think).
Already restart several times connected to power source and disconnected, and also tried desperately the Factory rest, nothing worked.
After reading this thread I was able to access the diagnostic menu, ( I was suspecting the the waveform had somehow been corrupted.
Turns out, is my panel ID that is not initializing.
This is the diagnostic menu message:

"Panel ID is ????_???_60 60 60 60 60 60 60 60 6
Waveform ID is v110_000_60_m01.

Error:Waveform not correct for this panel"

Log report from Diagnostic enu is has follow:

Failed: Panel ID Verification (V110_000_60_M01 != ????_???_60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60
60

97
97
97
97
97
97
97
97
97
97
97
97
97_M01
M03
M04
M06
M0B
M0C
M12
M13
M14
M23
M24
M3D
MA1
MA2

M01
M01
M0D
M05
M0E
M0F
M10
M15
M16
M17
M20
M21
M22)

EINK Panel ID: uninitialized

Do you have any suggestions? Do I need to root it first? And if so, any simple way to do it?
I already wrote to Amazon support asking at least for my panel ID, but I am not very hopefull

Thank you for your time

[Nephiel]

Looks like the panel is not reporting the correct ID.

IMHO your best bet would be opening it up and checking if the connector of the panel to the LCD is properly seated.

If that doesn't solve the problem, then the EEPROM data probably got corrupted somehow. You could try to fix that by reflashing it. And if that in turn doesn't work, then the EEPROM chip is probably damaged and you'd need to replace it or the whole panel.

For a software-based solution, you could try to force the waveform to load by editing the panel ID on the wbf file to match the ID your panel is (mis)reporting, but that requires rooting. I'd at least try reseating the connector first.

[readingforfun]

people with the ???_???_60 problem. Is is possible to change v110_000_60_m01.wbf to the default amazon screen wbf?

One issue is that I don't know what the original kindle waveform is for the Kindle 3g. Anyone have an original screen and can check?

[sim-sim88]

Hello!
Could you please help me?
I have broken my kindle keyboard screen and i bought a new one on Aliexpress.
But after replacement there seems to be a problem with waveforms - letters are pale and faded in some places.
The problem is my old screen - I`ve already threw it away. What should I do in this case?

[gatolt]

You can buy on ebay just screen cable with eeprom chip, connect it to morherboard, boot kindle , allow couple of minutes to load then disconnect cable WITHOUT TURNING KINDLE OFF and connect your screen. You will be fine till next reboot. Just keep an eye ob batery-do not allow it to run flat. Search for "faded kindle screen repair kit" . If it will work link is here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kindle-Key...0AAOSwyZ5UqwLU

[sim-sim88]

Originally Posted by gatolt

You can buy on ebay just screen cable with eeprom chip, connect it to morherboard, boot kindle , allow couple of minutes to load then disconnect cable WITHOUT TURNING KINDLE OFF and connect your screen. You will be fine till next reboot. Just keep an eye ob batery-do not allow it to run flat. Search for "faded kindle screen repair kit" . If it will work link is here: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Kindle-Key...0AAOSwyZ5UqwLU

Thank you!

[dpavlin]

Few days ago, I bought Kindle 3 which had problem with grayscales on screen. It produced follwoing messages in dmesg:

eink_fb: W log_battery_temperature:def:temp=84F:from battery
eink_fb: W bs_cmd_ld_img_upd_data_which:def:temp=35C:from pmic, outside of ideal range of 15C to 32C
eink_fb: W bs_cmd_ld_img_upd_data_which:def:temp=29C:from battery

Examining kernel /proc and /sys files we can see that display is using internal waveform and that it doesn't have panel id.

[root@kindle root]# cat /proc/eink_fb/waveform_version
V110_B059_60_WJ0105_D (M06, S/N 804, 85Hz)

[root@kindle root]# cat /sys/devices/platform/eink_fb.0/panel_id
????_???_??_???

In this case, it's eeprom on eink flat-flex cable which died. Same thing also happends when you buy replacement screens and receive one without eeprom on it.

Reading through Amazon's kernel source, I found that eink module tries to load isis.wbf waveform file if it exists. Since I didn't know which one to use, I randomly picked latest one:

[root@kindle root]# cd /var/local/eink/
[root@kindle eink]# cp V220_004_60_M12 isis.wbf

Restart your kindle and you will get your grayscale back. I hope this will help people who encounter same problem.

There is no verification if panel corresponds to waveform, and as far as I can see, any waveform (starting with V220) will work better than built-in one (which also overheats eink panel which is not good).

[KindleMeAndrey]

Big thanks, dpavlin. This worked perfectly for me. I ended up using V110_059_60_M06 instead.

[tianli]

This is great, dpavlin! This is the best solution for waveform update. Much better than those that requires hot swapping of the flexible cable or reprogramming of the eeprom.

Basically /var/local/eink/isis.wbf is the default waveform you need for the kindle 3 to load if your eeprom is empty.

To make a complete list of steps, you need:
1. Jailbreak and install usbnetwork, https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=88004

2. Enable usbnetwork to automatically start when usb is connected, so you can quickly experiment with a few different waveforms. Check the readme of usbnetwork package.

3. When kindle started, connect usb to your computer and ssh to it. Link a pre-stored waveform from /opt/eink/images/ to /var/local/eink/isis.wbf, reboot and test.
ln -s /opt/eink/images/xxx.wbf /var/local/eink/isis.wbf

For me only the oldest wbf works, maybe my new panel is really an old model.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by tianli

This is great, dpavlin! This is the best solution for waveform update. Much better than those that requires hot swapping of the flexible cable or reprogramming of the eeprom.

Basically /var/local/eink/isis.wbf is the default waveform you need for the kindle 3 to load if your eeprom is empty.

To make a complete list of steps, you need:
1. Jailbreak and install usbnetwork, https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ad.php?t=88004

2. Enable usbnetwork to automatically start when usb is connected, so you can quickly experiment with a few different waveforms. Check the readme of usbnetwork package.

3. When kindle started, connect usb to your computer and ssh to it. Link a pre-stored waveform from /opt/eink/images/ to /var/local/eink/isis.wbf, reboot and test.
ln -s /opt/eink/images/xxx.wbf /var/local/eink/isis.wbf

For me only the oldest wbf works, maybe my new panel is really an old model.

The K3 shipped with at least three different models of panel during its production life-time.
So a bit of experimentation to get the best match between the available files and the panel can be expected.

[kindle4me]

dpavlin

Many thanks to you and others on this site. Originally visited ages ago to find the "hot swap" fix that worked from reboot to reboot.

Had come back to get the details on reprogramming the memory chip but was worried that the chip driver may have been shorted by a loose screw. I found dpavlin's new solution and must say that this is exactly what I needed.

Thanks for sharing.

[simonirwin]

What a star! I have been tried for over a year to fix my greyscale problem. I have tried using ribbon cables bought off ebay, using ENABLE_DIAGS etc, to no avail, but dpavlin's solution works! Yay!

[H2D2]

Can you please PM me your wbf file?