The Adafruit Feather ecosystem is so rich with hardware diversity, we wanted to share them, one each day. Today is the Adafruit DotStar FeatherWing – 6 x 12 RGB LEDs!
This is the DotStar FeatherWing, a 6×12 RGB LED Add-on For All Feather Boards! Using our Feather Stacking Headers or Feather Female Headers you can connect a FeatherWing on top or bottom of your Feather board and make your Feather board strut like a peacock at a rave.
Put on your sunglasses before staring into these 72 configurable RGB LEDs, they are super bright! Arranged in a 6×12 matrix, each 2mm by 2mm sized RGB pixel is individually addressable. Only two pins are required to control all the LEDs. On the bottom we have jumpers for the Data and Clock lines so you can change them from the defaults. Works with any/all of Adafruit Feathers! You can cut the default jumper traces and use any pins you like
To make it easy to start, the LEDs are by default powered from either the USB power line or Battery power line, whichever is higher. Two Schottky diodes are used to switch between the two. This power arrangement is able to handle 1 Amp of constant current draw and maybe 2A peak, so not a good way to make a flashlight. It’s better for colorful effects. A power MOSFET is set up and connected to the ENABLE pin on the Feather so that when the Feather is disabled, the wing will also cut power.
USE
The Adafruit DotStar FeatherWing Guide provides details and use examples.
Projects
Would you like to see this FeatherWing in action? Check out the projects below:
