Toorcamp: Bliplace 2.0

We’ve shown [Tanjent]’s Bliplace 1.0 in the past. He handed out a few hundred of the open source audio toys at Burning Man. At Toorcamp, he’s been showing off an improved 2.0 version of the project. This one has a more powerful microcontroller and many more RGB LEDs.

The device uses the ATMega328 and an electret microphone to sample ambient noise. It the processes the sound into a light pattern which is displayed on the line of RGB LEDs. The demo that I saw showed the LEDs synchronized to bass frequencies, which it could pick up at a range from the large sub-woofers at Toorcamp. It’s powered by a CR2032 coin cell battery, which means it can be worn as a neat audio toy.

This prototype version was etched in his kitchen but [Tanjent] is working on making a production version of the PCB. He plans to release it as a surface mount soldering kit.

7 thoughts on “Toorcamp: Bliplace 2.0

  1. The dangly wires are for reprogramming the chip with an AVRISP, in case anyone’s wondering.

    The final version will be about 1 inch across, teardrop shaped, and should be reprogrammable with a FTDI cable and the Arduino environment.

  2. I’ve made four of the older Bliplace units. They’re very charming little things, easy and fun to assemble. My girlfriend loves setting two or three of them in front of her speakers, like a small nest of crazed lightning bugs.

  3. Okay the link mentions Bliplace 1.[01], but the post above mentions Bliplace 2.0 Is there another link?

    Is there any other difference between 1.0 and 1.1
    besides the smaller microphone?

    How do you pronounce “Bliplace”?

    BLY-playsz? Blip-LAYSz? ?

  4. I don’t have documentation up for Bliplace 2.0 yet, Toorcamp was the first trial run of my prototype.

    I pronounce it Blip-Lace, which is short for “blippy necklace”.

  5. I made something similar for the trip my friends and i took to Florida for Ultra music fest. But I’m an (intensely lazy or “efficient”) hardware guy and didn’t feel like programming anything, so I just used the LM391X series, an op-amp, a boost regulator , and one AA battery to produce some “music-synched flashing LEDs.” The design and layout took about two hours. Brought about a dozen of them to miami and gave them all away (people [esp on drugs] LOVE free stuff).

    Didn’t think this was internet-post-worthy so I didn’t do anything with it after the festival. Would anyone be interested in seeing the design?

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