Connectors

Deciding on connectors between the PCBs and off-board components was more difficult than I expected. There are dozens of systems for connections and I wasn’t familiar with most of them. I ended up buying a grab bag of connectors (for only $7.95) at Jameco – the process of digging through and sorting 200 random pieces […]

Next steps

Prior to pcb fab run verify: PoE at 12v over full 100 ft run. Communications work both ways. Photo transistor works over 10 ft run. All the above work together Changes: Shrink RJ45 pcb to same width as controller board Silkscreen full pcb layer to include mounting holes for alignment Rework to fit 4 RJ45 […]

1D fireworks

My first LED strip project was a vertical one-dimensional fireworks display. It’s 2 meters tall with 120 LEDs driven by an Arduino Uno. Here’s the code for the Arduino. boom.ino #include <FastLED.h> #define NUM_LEDS 120 #define DATA_PIN 6 CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS]; // sets up block of memory #define NUM_SPARKS 61 // max number (could be NUM_LEDS […]