MilesAtreides
Member
Thanks for the update
This forum is intended for interest gauging and active runs. Due to the transient nature of this forum, please keep all research and ongoing discussion in one of our main forums so your information is not lost.
Only Premium Members can start a new run.
SUPER interested in one of these for my wife. I'd be down for a kit + electronics.
Is the option for mild customization of the design still on the table?
I might be interested in a full kit - as usual, depending final look and price.![]()
The run is started. More-or-less; holidays have really cut into my building time, and we have some big projects due at work, too.
I discovered an error on the V. 1.1 PCB. I think I can rework them, but I want to order a fresh set of boards. But now that I've actually been putting them into fully assembled holocrons I'm starting to have some questions. So I want to put them before people here to see what is actually useful on the board and should stay, what is excess and should be omitted, and what would be really need and should be considered.
To wit:
1) Lithium Polymer battery? I think this is no-brainer; a rechargeable battery that will recharge off anything with a micro-USB connector; wall wart, computer, etc.
2) Neopixel or Cree? I have a rather nice little controller board for 1-watt "Cree" LEDs. This would be visually about 2x brighter -- but have a third of the battery life. The other drawback is 320 degree coverage; there would be a shadow on the bottom face of the holocron (the face that's usually sitting on the table).
3) USB hosting? Aka the ability to stick a thumb drive (if it is physically small enough) so it can be used as a USB storage device. Cute, but is it really getting used? Alternatively, I could put a micro-SD card slot inside the holocron; you can stick a 32 gig card for not much more than a thumb drive costs. It does up the complexity of the circuit board a bit, though.
4) Fully Arduino compatible? the boards I've been making are programmed via a standard 6-pin ICSP header. It would be a bit of a headache but I could switch over to USB-native or a V-USB stack that would allow programming via USB cable instead of needing an adaptor.
5) User option buttons. Is anyone really going to try to tweak the small number of variables? About all I can do is change the pulse rate, the brightness, and move the color center around. There are simply too many options for kinds of lighting animation to put them all in the code. Even making the button functionality described above is proving a chore to stuff into the chips I'm using.
I've built both Cree and Neo-based circuits. The current holo circuit -- which I'm shipping .