NeoPixel Ring Night Light Uses Minimal Components (ATtiny85!) and is Remote Controlled @instructables
over at Instructables, and I especially appreciate the ingenious design of using the NeoPixel ring’s through-holes as a type of mounting & securing mechanism for the PCB that fits snug inside the center of the ring – brilliant!
I’m giving some workshops in electronics in a few weeks, centered around an inexpensive, but useful real-world project. When trying to come up with a thing to make, I wanted it to involve a microcontroller, NeoPixel LEDs (because, they’re awesome), be remotely controllable, and allow for different build options. It also had to be fully simulatable in Autodesk Circuits. This is the project that evolved.
It packs some really cool features into a small device, is customizable, and is fairly simple to build.
NeoPixel Ring – 12 x 5050 RGB LED with Integrated Drivers: Round and round and round they go! 12 ultra bright smart LED NeoPixels are arranged in a circle with 1.5″ (37mm) outer diameter. The rings are ‘chainable’ – connect the output pin of one to the input pin of another. Use only one microcontroller pin to control as many as you can chain together! Each LED is addressable as the driver chip is inside the LED. Each one has ~18mA constant current drive so the color will be very consistent even if the voltage varies, and no external choke resistors are required making the design slim. Power the whole thing with 5VDC and you’re ready to rock. Read more.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 9.2.1, What is DMA, PyConUS 2025 and 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
