• NeoPixels are nifty

    01/18/2015 at 23:20 0 comments

    They certainly are! To think, as a kid, in the 1980s (yes, I'm still a kid)... LEDs were cool, but kinda limited. Now, holy moley, these things are really spiffy.

    My original order was 120 of them, and I'm likely not going to use all of those for the Matrices. My thinking is, with the technique I'm using to make them easier to handle, they should be pretty easy to mix into costume pieces. A little chunk of protoboard roughly the size of a quarter that emits light in any color I tell it to, that I can wear? WOW!

    Yeah, I know, I could order wearable-specific components from somewhere like AdaFruit. Don't be mistaken, I love AdaFruit, and what they do... I just like being stubborn and making some stuff myself.

    That said, I'm still waiting for my Arduino clones, and getting all of these tiny little buggers protoboarded. I ordered three controllers, and since two are going into Matrices, I may finally do something with all of these servos. I got a 10 pack of 9g micro-servos recently for a steal, and I'm itching to build another little robot.

  • Deep thinking with Floz

    01/03/2015 at 02:50 0 comments

    Wow, people are following my projects! I'm flattered!

    I'm blown away by the fact that a screenshot from LibreCAD could generate some interest. Still waiting on the Arduino clones from GearBest. Kinda sad that it's taking longer than I expected, especially since my NeoPixels from Mr Zhang came in already.

    Wow, these things are TINY. I have a few ideas now that I've seen them firsthand, and handled them.. and soldered a few together in a chain.

    The pads look like they might be 0.10 inch spacing. I'm going to try putting pins on them and using a socket. There are several ideas that have popped up since they arrived, including a Destroid/Daft Punk bit of costume.

    Now that the holidays are over, I actually will have some time to experiment and build before the marryin' season kicks off and we're busy again.