This is a new version of my Tengu clone. This time on a printed circuit board (PCB). I have them produced by Olimex and I am very pleased with the quality. The PCB worked on the first try and has some minor issues only.
BlinkM is a smart LED, developed by Tod E. Kurt from ThingM. In a way it is a cousin of the Programmable LED. It is a microcontroller with an attached RGB LED. The idea is to implement PWM to control the color and brightness of the LED and put it in the controller. That means you have an abstraction level to make your programming easier. You can simply order “fade to red” or “fade to blue”.
TV-B-Gone is pure subversive fun. If you don’t know it, it was invented by Mitch Altman and it is a universal TV remote control with a single button, the power button. You can only switch TVs off. No longer dumb advertisements everywhere you go. Just switch them off. Extra portions of fun in a MediaMarkt.
Just another fine device, well suited for DIY.
Back in March I published my first instructable called Programmable LED. The idea was simple, have a device that is able to record and play back light sequences. Light sequences are recorded with an LDR, a light dependent resistor and played back with an LED.
After a while some users at Instructables began to rebuild, modify and improve the Programmable LED. Ok, that’s what Instructables is all about, to share and to distribute, but it was astonishing to me, how it worked.
This is a gallery of these derived and improved versions. Kudos to all the builders.
When I first saw Crispin Jones Tengu, I was sure, I must have one. If you don’t know tengu and don’t want to follow the link, it’s a small face, made of LEDs, that reacts to music and sound.
It did not take long until I decided to clone this funny little device. All it needs is a microcontroller, an LED matrix and a sound sensor.
I was always fascinated by the emergence of patterns. One I like most is the synchronization of hundreds or thousands of fireflies. First they flash randomly but after some time and influencing each other, they flash in sync.
The rule behind this is very simple. All fireflies have nearly the same frequency for their flashing, but their phase is shifted. If a firefly receives a flash of a neighbour firefly, it flashes slightly earlier.
This circuit simulates fireflies with small microcontrollers.
A single Firefly
The board consists of 25 fireflies. Every single firefly is self contained, there is no over-all controller. A single firefly consists of:
The circuit is the same as for the Programmable LED.
The complete Board
Assembling 25 fireflies on a prototype board is easy. Harder is to get the right distance between all fireflies. It has to be close enough to let one firefly influence another, but not the whole group.
The LEDs I used emit the light mostly straight up. So a kind of reflector is needed. I used a piece of paper which is located 5 mm above the LEDs. For the next version I would take LEDs with a wider light emitting angle and use a kind of diffuser, as proposed by Tod for his Smart LED Prototypes.
Here is a video. It is a bit dark as my camera is not very suitable for this.
Inspired by various LED Throwies, blinking LEDs and similar instructables I wanted to do my version of an LED controlled by a microcontroller.
The idea is to make the LED blinking sequence reprogrammable. This reprogramming can be done with light and shadow, e.g. you could use your flashlight.
How is it done?
It consists of an LDR, an LED and a tiny microcontroller. I used a ATtiny13v which is able to run with 1.8V. That makes it easy to power it with smallest batteries or even fruits.
Prototyping
All components can be easily used on a breadboard. Be aware, that you will need a separate programmer or an ISP adapter to program it.
The final version
The final version is powered by a CR2032 cell. It should have enough power for at least two weeks, depending on the light sequence it plays.
I have done a step-by-step instructable here.
Here are some responses to the instructable
So this is my approach of an LED clock. There are zillions of LED clocks out there. Mine is some kind of retro and minimalistic version. It consists of
The LED matrix is used in landscape mode, that means it uses a very tiny font. Most characters fit in 3×5 pixels. The font supports only uppercase characters. Because the display has only 8 columns the message has to scrolled.
The display has the following features at the moment:
Schematics
Here is the schematic of the LED clock. The Everlight 5*8 Dot Matrix was not available as part of the Eagle libraries, so I build the part on my own. It looks a bit clumsy as it is my first try to design components.
Here is a video of the LED Clock. You can see how it changes through different modes from telling the time to displaying a greetings message.
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