Here I briefly document a very realistic candlelight effect you can build with very few components. It works best if the device is placed in a jar or behind a screen, where the Neopixel ring is not in direct sight. You will find all the required information, schema and the firmware to build the device….
Category: Projects
This category contains all projects.
How to Wire the Snowflake Decoration
If you own an original snowflake kit or produced boards from the sources, you have to wire them by yourself. The pre-assembled kit from Pimoroni comes with some nice flex-cables, but you may want to replace them with more decorative ones. Here I explain how to create a custom wiring for your snowflake decoration. Layout…
Snowflake Configuration
In version 1.2 of the snowflake firmware, I added a configuration mode, using a button attached to the data in of the first element. The States The attached button can issue two actions: a short press and a long press. A short press is anything from 50ms to approximate two seconds, and a long press…
Recreating the Human Perception of the Snowflake Sparkling Effect
The sparkling lights on the real snowflake decoration are stunning and beautiful. Yet, it seems to be impossible to capture the effect with a video. After some experiments, I created a new video with a simple effect applied. It does not resemble the tiny, spiky and beautiful corona around the lights you see with your…
Snowflake Project Videos
From the beginning of the snowflake project, I tried to create photos or videos which capture the actual beauty of the decoration. Here are the two more recent videos I created: Differences to the Real Impression I am not happy with the videos and photos so far, because the effect looks dull and flat compared…
HAL LCD Demo
I added more modules to the HAL layer. The Hitachi LCD driver is now in a stable state. It uses a MCP23008 chip-based backend to reduce the number of wires required to access the display. Video Parts This demo uses a number of Adafruit boards and components: Adafruit Feather M0 (any type) Adafruit I2C /…
A New Modular CMake Based Toolchain for Feather M0 HAL
In the past months, I developed firmware for a few Adafruit Feather M0 based projects. The reason why I use the Adafruit Feather platform, instead of using an MCU directly, is for modularity. By using a board on sockets, it can be replaced at any later time with a more powerful one – or by…
Tiny Particle Sensor Node with Decorative Case
This article is about a small sensor node with a decorative case. It is based on the Raspberry Pi Zero W board with a custom sensor shield on top. I publish all hardware files for a simple version of the sensor, so you should be able to build this kind of sensor nodes and use…
Snowflake Project Documentation
I wrote a short page about the snowflake project from the end of 2017. On the page, you will find a summary of the project and the link to the repository with all the required files. Everything is open-source, including the design files for the hardware and a base version of the firmware for the…
Testing the TPS61092 Boost Converter
For my current project I searched for a good boost power converter which is able to deliver continuous 400mA power for various sensors. There are an endless number of good boost converters around, but not many can be hand soldered to a board. I would really like to see some like the TPS61092 with SOIC…