[Ray] just tipped us about his latest project: the SquareWear Mini, which basically is an improved version of the SquareWear 2.0 that we featured a month ago. For our readers that may have missed it, the SquareWear is essentially a wearable Arduino platform running at 3.3V and 12MHz. Both versions are based on an ATMega328 microcontroller running the V-USB library to provide USB connectivity, put together with diverse onboard peripherals.
As you can see in the picture above, the Mini includes 2 N-MOSFETs, one temperature sensor, one light sensor, a 16KB EEPROM memory, one buzzer, a one cell LiPo battery connector together with one charging controller, and finally a power switch (USB/battery). It is supposed to be 25% smaller than the SquareWear 2.0 and is optimized to work with a WS2812B-based 5×7 RGB LED matrix that [Ray] also designed. The latter can easily be cascaded in X/Y directions with other LED matrices in order to expand the overall display.
At last, [Ray] created a software to design animations and upload them to the SquareWear . A presentation video of the complete system is embedded after the break and you can download all the design files on GitHub.
I’m impressed! I’m halfway through his video. I would like to have one (or a hundred) it just depends on price.
The price is on the website in the description. It’s 19.99$. Plus he has the design files up on his github.
And I was just working on a WS2812(B) chainable board too. I still think I’ll be doing my own but that one is really well done. It does bug me that he’s not using a cap paired with each LED but I suppose it’s been tested and works well.
That LED array looks like the NeoPixel arduino shield that Adafruit already sells.
It’s true that they are all based on the same LEDs (WS2812). But this one is designed to extend seamlessly both horizontally and vertically. So you can make a larger display panel.
So how do you mount them onto something? There’s no screwholes or areas where the head of a bolt can be glued to the board…
Well the idea was that it’s a wearable board: the LED matrix attaches (through snaps) to SquareWear Mini, which has large pin holes that can be sewed onto clothes. The LED matrix itself does not have screw holes, mainly because it’s designed to extend to a larger display and I don’t want to leave holes in between.
Actually since you mentioned ‘glue a bolt to the board’ — you can glue bolts or copper/plastic support pillars at the back of the LED matrix.