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Testing LEDs

A project log for Vulcan Salute

With this bit of animated art on your wall, it would be illogical if you did not receive extra long life and prosperity.

terragterrag 02/20/2017 at 13:160 Comments

This weekend I found the perfect plastic material for the perimeter of the hand - a piece of diffuser sheet from an old CRT projection TV. I measured the height of the motor while it was on the motor mount (the tallest item to go in the center of the hand) and I cut a slice of diffuser material 32mm in height. I then proceed to glue it to the acrylic base of the hand and made a notch for the motor wires to exit. Then it was time to put two strips of blue LEDs on the inside of the hand. The blue LEDs are on a strip with a 150 ohm resistor for each group of 3 in series. I tested the brightness on my bench power supply and found that I would like to supply at least 11 volts. I've chosen to use a boost converter to boost 5V to 12V. The converter I have on hand happens to have a chip enable pin available, so I can easily program a PWM breathing effect by using any of the GPIO pins on the ESP8266 and analogWrite commands. I was also able to test the 20 LEDs in the fingers. I have each of the 2 pairs of fingers using the same data wire, so the LED patterns will be mirrored.

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