You have one day to make a halloween decoration! What will you do!? Well, if you have a Trinket and a couple of LEDs + a photo cell you can build these randomly blinky eyes that turn on when it gets dark
A recent MAKE project, Spooky Blinky Eyes by Bill Blumenthal, demonstrates an ATTiny45 processor fading a pair of LED eyes that randomly blink, giving a more realistic effect than standard “always on” LED eyes.
The effect is due to come clever programming of the timers available on the ATTiny processors featured on the Adafruit Trinket and Gemma microcontrollers. Pins 0 and 1 are capable of pulse width modulation. The timers are set to fade the pins in and out by changing the pulse width back and forth. The blink effect is using an algorithm called a linear feedback shift register (LFSR) to pseudo-randomly turn the eyes off and on quickly.
This project adapts the original code for use on the faster ATTiny85 processor and for the Arduino integrated development environment (IDE). It also adds a Cadmium Sulfide (CdS) photocell to allow the eyes to come on only below a certain light level. During sunlight, this will save battery power.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: A New Arduino MicroPython Package Manager, How-Tos and Much More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey