Custom ATTiny85 Board Powers Kids’ Light Show

July 27, 2018 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

We’ve often said that kids with hackers and makers for parents must be some of the luckiest kids in the world. While all the other children have to settle for some mass produced drivel from ~~Toys“R”Us~~ Amazon, they’ve got some of the most thoughtfully engineered and built toys and gadgets on the planet. After all, there’s no way any hacker worth their salt is going to give anything less than 110% for their own child.

A case in point is this RGB star nightlight that [Unexpected Maker] built for his children. The star itself is simple enough, just a basic shape printed in transparent PLA on his Prusa i3. The impressive part is how he lights it up. Rather than stick an Arduino or ESP8266 in there as we have seen plenty of times before, he’s put together his own custom ATTiny85 board specifically for controlling the RGB LED strips.

The board, which he calls TinyDev, is designed to be the same thickness as NeoPixel style LED strips so it can fit inside tight spaces. He solders it onto the tail end of his LED strip, adds a photoresistor so the star can tell when it’s time to light up, and then snakes the whole arrangement through a channel printed in the star itself. There’s a battery pack in the middle, but that’s about it. It really does allow for a remarkably clean LED strip implementation, and the mind can’t help but start thinking of interesting possibilities when you can tuck the controller into the same space as the lights themselves.

[Unexpected Maker] has made the TinyDev completely open source for anyone who wants to build their own, but it’s also available on Tindie if you want to get one to play with quickly. If you’re looking to light up the little one’s room with somewhat more mainstream methods, we’ve got that covered too.

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ESP8266 Internet Controlled LED Dimmer

July 27, 2018 by Tom Nardi 11 Comments

There’s no shortage of debate about the “Internet of Things”, largely centered on security and questions about how much anyone really needs to be able to turn on their porch light from the other side of the planet. But while many of us are still wrestling with the realistic application of IoT gadgets, there’s undoubtedly those among us who have found ways to put this technology to work for them.

One such IoT devotee is [Sasa Karanovic], who writes in to tell us about his very impressive custom IoT LED dimmer based on the ESP8266. Rather than rely on a commercial lighting controller, he’s designed his own hardware and software to meet his specific needs. With the LED strips now controllable by any device on his network, he’s started working on Python scripts which can detect what he’s doing on his computer and react accordingly. For example, if he’s watching a movie the lights will automatically dim, and come back up when he’s done.

[Sasa] has provided all the files necessary to follow in his footsteps, from the Gerber files for his PCB to the Arduino code he’s running on the ESP. The source code is especially worth checking out, as he’s worked in a lot of niceties that we don’t always see with DIY projects. From making sure the ESP8266 gets a resolvable DNS hostname on the network to using websockets which update all connected clients with status info in real-time, he’s really put a lot of work into making the experience as complete as possible.

He’s explains in his blog post what needs to be edited to put this code to work in your own environment, and there’s even some descriptive comments in the code and a helpful debug mode so you can see how everything works. It’s always a good idea to consider that somebody else down the road might be using your code; taking a few minutes to make things clear can save them hours of stumbling around in the dark.

If you need more inspiration for your ESP8266 lighting project, check out this ambient lighting controller for a kid’s room, or this professional under-cabinet lighting controller.

ESP8266 Zelda Heart Responds To Tweets

July 25, 2018 by Tom Nardi 3 Comments

It might not be enough to make you the Hero of Time, but this piece of Hylian interactive art would still be a worthy addition to your game room. [Jeremy Cook] writes in to tell us about how he put together this 8-bit style heart display, and goes into enough detail on the hardware and software sides of things that you shouldn’t have any problem adapting his design for your own purposes.

The build is pretty simple overall but it does assume you have a CNC to cut the basic shape out of MDF. You could cut the shape by hand if you had to, but if you don’t have a CNC the next best thing might be to 3D print the case. You’d potentially have to print it in two parts right down the center though, depending on how big your bed is. Whichever way you create the case, you’ll then need to cut the shape out of a piece of acrylic to make the face.

In any event, once the pieces are cut out [Jeremy] adds in a Wemos D1 Mini, a power supply, and some red LED strips. He provides a wiring diagram, but it’s fairly straightforward stuff. With a couple of 2N2222 transistors he controls the LED strips right from the digital pins of the ESP8266.

The software side is setup to be controlled via IFTTT by way of Adafruit.io. When IFTTT sees one of the keywords on Twitter, it passes a message to Adafruit.io which ultimately talks to the ESP8266 and gets the heart going. The software supports three states (on, off, and half) and gives a good example of a basic IoT implementation on the ESP8266 if you’re looking for some inspiration.

This hack seems like it would fit in perfectly with the Zelda home automation project we covered last year.

Recycle LCDs Into LEDs

July 21, 2018 by Al Williams 12 Comments

We always find it funny when we see ads for modern LED TVs. These TVs don’t use LEDs to show the picture. They are nothing more than LCD screens with LED backlighting instead of cold cathode fluorescent lamps. [Akshaylals] had a few LCD laptop and phone panels that were defunct and decided to recycle them to get to the LEDs within.

Most panels are lit from one or two edges with a bar of LEDs. You only have to peel off some tape and plastic. If you wonder what all those plastic sheets do, see the [Engineer Guy’s] video, below.

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Arduino Powered Arcade Button Lighting Effects

July 20, 2018 by Tom Nardi 4 Comments

As if you already weren’t agonizing over whether or not you should build your own arcade cabinet, add this one to the list of compelling reasons why you should dedicate an unreasonable amount of physical space to playing games you’ve probably already got emulated on your phone. [Rodrigo] writes in to show off his project to add some flair to the lighted buttons on his arcade controller. (Google Translate)

The wiring for this project is about as easy as you’d expect: the buttons connect to the digital inputs on the Arduino, and the LEDs on the digital outputs. When the Arduino code sees the button getting pressed, it brings the corresponding LED pin high and starts a fade out timer using the SoftPWM library by [Brett Hagman].

It’s worth noting that the actual USB interface is being done with a stand-alone controller, so the Arduino here is being used purely to drive the lighting effects. The more critical reader might argue that you could do both with a single microcontroller, but [Rodrigo] was in a classic “Use what you’ve got” situation, and already had a USB controller on hand.

Of course, fancy lit arcade buttons won’t do you much good without something to put them in. Luckily we’ve covered some fantastic looking arcade cabinets to get you inspired.

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Blinging Buttons For Pick And Place

July 14, 2018 by Dan Maloney 7 Comments

With 3D-printing, cheap CNC machines, and the huge variety of hardware available these days, really slick-looking control panels are getting to be commonplace. We’re especially fond of those nice indicators with the chrome bezels, and the matching pushbuttons with LED backlighting; those can really make a statement on a panel.

Sadly for [Proto G], though, the LEDs in his indicator of choice were just boring old one-color units, so he swapped them out and made these addressable RGB indicators. The stock lamps are not cheap units, but they do have a certain look, and they’re big enough to allow room for a little modification. The original guts were removed with a Dremel to make way for a Neopixel board. [Proto G] wanted to bring the board’s pads out to screw terminals, so he had to adapt the 3.0-mm pitch blocks he had on hand to the 2.54-mm pitch on Neopixel board, but that actually came out neater than you’d think. With a little hot glue to stick it all back together, he now has fully-addressable indicators that can be daisy-chained together and only take up a single GPIO pin.

These indicators and the nice looking panel they’re on is part of a delta pick-and-place robot build [Proto G] has been working for a while. He’s had some interesting side projects too, like the clickiest digital clock in the world and easing ESP32 setup for end-users. While we like all his stuff, we can’t wait to write up the finished delta.

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LEDs Make An “Analog” Wristwatch

July 5, 2018 by Lewin Day 6 Comments

If you just came down in the last shower, you’re probably used to living in a world where LEDs are cheap, awesome, and practically everywhere. Spare a thought for those of us who lived before the invention of high brightness LEDs – these things still amaze us! A great example of how far we’ve come is this “analog” watch build by [Kevin], featuring no less than 73 of the critters.

The microcontroller running the watch is an STM32, chosen for its easy programmability. It’s running the LEDs in an emulation of the dial of an analog clock, hence the high part count. Naturally, it’s no simple task to cram 73 LEDs and all the necessary connections into the confines of a watch-sized PCB. [Kevin] goes into great detail about the challenges involved, from routing the traces to a tricky power draw problem caused by some odd blue LEDs.

Watch builds are always fun, and they make great conversation pieces for when you want to amaze strangers with your tales of battles fought in the PCB design suite. Now check out this similar build with an entirely different style.