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The dawn of a new project

A project log for Electronics Workshops Resources

Project where I put logs and other useful informations from past workshops

yann-guidon-ygdesYann Guidon / YGDES 01/16/2017 at 22:502 Comments

2017 is here !

I haven't kept up with the latest logs, shame on me, but there is a bit of progression.

Now, we embark on a 3-months period (10 workshops) where we are asked to design and build a project.

We have brainstormed and chosen the following project :

make many modules, each module writes a letter with 14 segments made of LEDs, modules can be chained to create words

The letter is selected either with DIP switches or an external digital control (hooked to a Pi for example). This dual-mode ensures that no programming is required for testing the board or making the first applications. Later, when digital control and programming are understood, the boards will be easy to chain and create scrolling boards !


So the first workshop started with a brainstorm session that led to this outline, but is it possible and realistic ? We spent the rest of the workshop examining some of the salient aspects.

First, the PCB should be bound to the 10×10cm cheap PCB (made by dangerousprototypes and others). So a letter is approx. 10cm high and 7cm wide.

From there, we determined that there would be about 92 LEDs per letter ! There are 10 long segments of 6 LEDs and 4 (6?) segments of 4 LEDs. If we build 50 letters, that's almost 5000 LEDs to solder !

Another consideration comes from the requirement to run the circuit with digital inputs : the letters are powered from 5V. This creates a number of consequences for the circuit's organisation.

The segments having either 4 or 6 LED in series, under 5V, it seems appropriate to use LEDs in pairs, to make 2 or 3 parallel strings per segment, with a current-limiting resistor.


We did a few experiments with the LEDs we had lying around. Several colors (red, green and blue) were tested for electrical and visual properties.

A 1K resistor and two LED are wired in series then powered with a couple of CR2032 batteries (6V).

Tomorrow, we'll test which type/model of LED is best suited, from my personal stock...


Control : the segments are driven either by a DIP Switch or a 74HC circuit. The 74HC circuit is disabled when the DIPswitch is active, with the "output enable" pin.

The boards are chained so they have an input and output bus.

The original idea was to have a couple of 74HC574 to latch 16 bits but the wide bus was too cumbersome.

I have enough 74HC595 to replace this, so a serial / SPI interface will be used.

It's interesting because we'll learn about the shift registers...

Discussions

Eric Hertz wrote 01/17/2017 at 09:10 point

cool idea, use students to do tedious manual labor, soldering 5000 LEDs ;)

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Yann Guidon / YGDES wrote 01/17/2017 at 12:17 point

They're not even students. With 13-years olds, expect 10 to 20% defect rate and uneven aspects. But it's a good "introduction" to the kinds of crazy projects that seem to delight people : the more LEDs, the happier... And it's the right place to introduce the notions of "quality control" and let them understand the power of multiplications : it's from the beginning of a project that you can decide if you'll suffer the hell of endless labor.

OTOH if you're smart and can look further than your nose, you can "design for manufacturability" :-)

And I admit that certain kids come just for the pleasure of soldering stuff.

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