#creativeelectronics

[adafruit]

BIG BIG rainbows on "Sparkle motion" WLED driver board 🌈💡

We got our WLED-friend PCBs

https://blog.adafruit.com/2024/12/02/leftovers-layout-wled-board-revision-a-completed/

and are testing it with various LED grids. First, we tried out a 16x16 NeoPixel grid that runs on 5V. Since that worked well, we're now onto a much bigger 60 x 60 grid - that's 3,600 LEDs! These are some NeoPixel pebble

netting samples we're also testing at the same time; each one has 20 x 60 pixels and uses 12V power, so it's a good test of the DC pass-through for higher voltages. Since WLED has a limit of 2000 pixels per output, this demo uses the three output ports that are then 'merged' together in memory to make a single large grid. We have more to test soon: the onboard IR receiver, USB PD, I2S microphone, extra I/O pins, and I2C, so watch for those videos as they come together. Coming soon -

[adafruit]

What's N E W ??? these glowing alphanumeric filaments! 🔡💡

Last month we stocked some fun filament shapes, like snowflakes

...or unicorns

...these are easy to use: simply power with 3V like any LED and they glow with a tungsten-eque warmth (but without the 120VAC or burning heat). This week we got some samples of the same COB 'chip on board' filaments but in letters and numbers! Sure we'll have to stock 36 SKUs, but how fun would it be to display custom words? You can drive these in series - 3V total with about 30mA per filament - or parallel - 30mA and 3V * n where n is the number of letters in a row.

[adafruit]

We're doing 8 days of light-filled designs to wrap up this year. We started with the Sparkle Motion Mini

, which can drive thousands of shimmering RGB LEDs. Then, we did the Sparkle Motion stick, a USB-pluggable version

On the third night, a 1.28" round TFT display

, and on the fourth a 1.8" round TFT with captouch overlay

On the fifth night, a tiny 0.85" TFT display

came to life. We took a little break on the sixth night since we were doing a lot of Sparkle Motion testing

and did a quick revision of our NeoRGB

On the penultimate night and New Year's Eve, we're making a quick Qwiic board—this is an I2C breakout for transparent OLED displays. We've had the display in our 'in progress' bin for a few years but finally sat down to finish it tonight. We're experimenting with a wrap-around setup for the FPC and a cutout for the display for mounting. We'll see how it goes!

[adafruit]

Festival of lights - night #5 0.85" 128x128 TFT breakout 🎆🌈

We're doing 8 days of light-filled designs to wrap up this year. We started with the Sparkle Motion Mini

which can drive thousands of shimmering RGB LEDs. Then, we did the Sparkle Motion stick, a USB-pluggable version

On the third night, a 1.28" round TFT display

, and on the fourth a 1.8" round TFT with captouch overlay

. we've over the hump and still going strong! Tonight, we did a 0.85" TFT breakout; it's 128x128 pixels and so tiny we had to put the breakout pads on opposite sides.

[adafruit]

🚨✨ New at Adafruit! ✨🚨 💻 Raspberry Pi USB 3 Hub - 5 Gbit/s USB 3.2 Gen1, 🌈 Adafruit NeoPixel Pebble / Seed LED Strand - 100, 150, 200, and 300 LEDs, 🔋 Adafruit bq25185 USB / DC / Solar Lithium Ion/Polymer charger, and ⚡ Adafruit bq25185 USB / DC / Solar Charger with 3.3V Buck Board. Head over to https://adafruit.com/new

[adafruit]

Festival of Lights - NeoRGB Stemma revision ✨🌈

We're doing 8 days of light-filled designs to wrap up this year. We started with the Sparkle Motion Mini

which can drive thousands of shimmering RGB LEDs. Then, we did the Sparkle Motion stick, a USB-pluggable version

On the third night, a 1.28" round TFT display

and on the fourth a 1.8" round TFT with captouch overlay

On the fifth night, a tiny 0.85" TFT display

came to life.

This night, we're taking a little bit of a breather since we want to do final testing and hopefully send out the Sparkle Motion PCBs

So, we're doing a quick revision of the NeoRGB Stemma board

This time, we're adding a level shifter so it can be used with 3.3V logic. It's just a small fix, but it will make the board a lot more usable!

[adafruit]

Desk of Ladyada - festival of light-related PCB designs ✨💡🎨 https://youtu.be/2T8HyBvQX_Q

[adafruit]

Festival of Lights - Night #4 1.8" Round TFT with Captouch ✨💡📲👈🎨

To wrap up this year, we're doing 8 days of light-filled designs. We started with the Sparkle Motion Mini

which can drive thousands of shimmering RGB LEDs. Then, we did the Sparkle Motion stick, a USB-pluggable version

. On the third night, a 1.28" round TFT display

. Today, we're doing another TFT display, this time a 360x360 pixel IPS TFT that is also round and comes with a captouch display. we're going with SMT headers for breadboard-friendly usage and EYESPI for a compact connection. since we think folks may want a compact mounting solution, we put some SMT nuts on the back so the display PCB is perfectly round.