Scratch-built Smart Flashlight

scratch-built-smart-flashlight

This flashlight has a face; one of the many tricks which [Hobbyman] included during the development process. The smart flashlight build turned out to be a great way to practice so many different aspects of product development.

It was envisioned as a light for use when walking or biking that could do more than just light your way or flash on and off. Of course we know it’s really just a reason to spend way too much time in his lair. He started with the electronics, driven by a PIC 16F88. The 5×5 LED matrix gives him just enough to work with for patterns and rudimentary text. The prototype is wrapped up into a pretty tight package which leaves enough room in the 3D printed case for 4 AAA batteries. As the project progressed more and more features were added in. The most current offering includes a temperature sensor as well as the ability to react to ambient sound. See for yourself after the break.

[Thanks Zibri]

13 thoughts on “Scratch-built Smart Flashlight

      1. Background music is never illustrative. If the point of a video is to demonstrate something, good old-fashioned TALKING works very, very well!

        I would prefer to hear your not-ready-for-radio, umm-ing and uh-ing voiceover than some song that you like that I probably don’t (and that will prevent it from being embedded and/or viewed in other regions).

        No need to write a script, an outline should suffice: if you made the thing, you’re an expert on the thing, please just tell us about it?

    1. It’s the theme from the movie “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”

      And frankly, I don’t think GEMA would care if it’s copyright or not, they’ll probably copyright silence at this point.
      You should just use one of those sites that bypass the system. Google it.

  1. I have actually been toying with making something like this, but i wanted mine to spell out text while maintaining the same average light level, and i’m not smart enough to make a display driver that could handle that.

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