LEAP#299 The Boldport Club Matrix
The Matrix is an I²C-controlled 24x5 LED matrix display, powered by an AMS AS1130 LED driver.
It’s made of 0.2mm thick circuit board so it can slightly bend. A few can be chained together for a larger display.
With 120 0805 LEDs and an SSOP-28 AS1130, this kit is another great excuse to fire up the hot-air and
get a stencil from OSHStencils.
As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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LEAP#298 The Golden Hind
A nice diversion .. a simple kit of the Golden Hind (Model 9209) ended up in my shopping cart on an impulse.
I’ve been curious about the recent popularity of these mini 3D metal models.
I am guessing the availability and affordability of precision laser cutting equipment might have something to do with it.
The Metal Earth brand is often seen in toy retailers (it even has its own sub-reddit!),
but the model designs all see to be common from a few Chinese manufacturers. The model I have here comes from
Shantou Mini Qute Trading Co. Ltd.
As always, all notes in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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LEAP#297 CD4070 Oscillator
This is a widely-shared circuit of a “square wave generator with CD4070”.
I had a few spare minutes so I thought I’d give it a go. Should be straight-forward, looks like a familiar oscillator circuit based on logic gates.
Well, not so fast. I found this configuration extremely temperamental on a breadboard, and the output is more sinusoid than square. It also made me wonder about the performance of this circuit with buffered and unbuffered versions of the chip.
Ultimately, I came up with three workable variants of this circuit. All interesting, but none worth much for practical purposes as the stability and output characteristics are very poor. But they do work, after a fashion!
As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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LEAP#296 Solar Pendulum on a Boldport QSOP Breakout
I had a spare BoldPort QSOP Breakout board and for a while had been pondering some interesting use for it. I think I finally found one … a solar pendulum! I discovered some new and creative solar wobble/flip-flap toys while travelling recently, which started me wondering how they work. Design details are scant, much hidden behind patent walls. The trick appears to be in the switching of capacitor-backed pulses through a coil. What is quite impressive is how well they work with only modest internal lighting and very small photovoltaic cells. The final approach I used was inspired by a Nuts & Volts article As always, all notes, schematics and code are in the Little Electronics & Arduino Projects repo on GitHub
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