mini Sparkle Motion prototype – a tiny, fully-featured WLED board
We’re doing a lot of serious testing with our WLED mega-board, code-name Sparkle Motion. While doing some holiday lighting projects, we also wanted something slim enough to slip into any design. It still uses an ESP32 for the best support, with USB-serial programming, 5A fuse, 5V level shifting + 100 ohm series resistors for pixel drivers, user/reset buttons, a user LED and onboard neopixel, JST SH analog/digital connector, QT I2C connector, 4 GPIO plus power/ground breakouts, and USB type C power/data input.
However, this version is made simpler and less expensive by dropping the DC jack and USB PD support: it’s only for 5V strips if you want to power them directly (you could still drive 12V or 24V pixels, but you’ll need separate power for them). Instead of a full set of terminal blocks for 3 signals, we only have two outputs, and they have to share the power and ground pins. It could also be used for a single two-pin dotstar LED setup. We kept the built-in I2S mic but dropped the on-board IR sensor – if you want an IR sensor, you’ll be able to plug it into the JST SH port with a simple cable or solder it into the breakout pads.
The trade-off is that it’s much smaller and slimmer, especially when no terminal blocks are soldered in by default: only 1.2″ long x 0.785″ wide (~1 sq in) x 0.3″ thick vs. the original’s 2″ x 1.3″ (2.6 sq in) x 0.55″. To get it that small, we went 4-layer to give us a nice big ground and 5V plane in the middle and double-sided assembly. Coming soon.
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