Super Spectacular Christmas Door Wreath
Waiting for the Mail Man!
I thought I would write more about the hardware for this project while I wait for the guys in the vans to show up.
A lot of this stuff isn't necessary, but since I have it on my bench, I thought I would throw whatever I wanted at this project. I just hope the wreath mount that hangs over the top of the door can handle it!
The parts list looks like the ingredients of one of my recipes, or at least it is as busy as that.
Below is an outline of the hardware, and it's contribution to this masterpiece!
7 Port Powered USB Hub
5vdc 3a Switching Power Adapter
The WS2812 LED string consumes a fair amount of power. Each LED of each module consumes 18ma. So you multiply that times 3 for the module which means each module eats up 54ma. That is just one. We are using 60 modules, so the total possible consumption is 60x54ma=3.24 amps! This of course is the worst case scenario, with all the LEDs at full brightness. Measurements will have to be made, but a scenario where they will all be on isn't expected. There is no reason to shine the equivalent of auto headlights into the face of our visitors! Still, it would be a good idea to write the pattern code around a maximum brightness setting and test the current under full load.
1m 60ct WS2812 LED Module Strip
This is the heart of the wreath hack. These 1 meter length strips of 60 WS2812 LED modules are fairly cheap, run at 5vdc, have interface connectors, and even come in a waterproof sleeve. At the time of this blog, they can be had on ebay for about $27. That's only 45 cents apiece! And if you get 4 meters of them (240 LEDs) the price drops all the way down to about a quarter! At that price, you can put these things anywhere and everywhere! The caveat however is that you have to talk to them. No, I don't mean sit down and have a conversation, but rather control them using a digital stream of data. You will need a micro controller for that. More on this later down the road when I write a page specifically for each item.
The Teensy 3.0
If the WS2812 LEDs are the heart of the project, then the Teensy 3.0 is definitely the brain that makes them beat. I initially picked this tiny little board to just control this type of LED module, mostly because many of the examples out there used it, and it is cheap! $20 USD!
But there is a lot more to this little beast. For one, it is overclock-able to 96 MHz. It can control up to 8 strips for large array applications, it can be powered a few different ways, it is easy to program, and it can run Arduino sketches with an add-on installed into the Arduino IDE. It can interact with capacitive touch devices, ethernet, analog sensors, SPI devices, I²C devices, has tons of interrupts, and RTCC capability (add a 32.768 KHz crystal). It can even function as a USB host or HID. The applications list is amazing!
Droid 1 (Original)
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| "Isn't my hat just lovely?" "Well uh..." |
Moving on to another animated feature, the movie clip player. It is nothing more than a dated but still functional Droid 1 smart phone. Who says old phones cannot serve a purpose? With its WiFi and blue-tooth ability, stereo audio out, ability to play mp4 encoded video and audio, and run home created programs, it is a perfect fit for this need. This old friend of mine is a miracle of quality workmanship too.
On its last day as my main phone, it did a back flip off the top of my Jeep while I was driving 60 mph! It then hit the pavement, cartwheeling, throwing pieces of itself everywhere before finally sliding face down to a hard stop in sand, rocks, and dirt off the shoulder. there it rested all day until I came back to the scene with my wife after work. We hunted down all the parts which spread over a hundred feet, including the battery which was in the middle of the road! The screen had a couple of hard-to-see scratches but NO CRACKS! All the raised metal trim around the screen was shaved off however and that is what probably saved the screen. After dumping all the debris out of the phone, it went back together fairly easily. Even the slid out keyboard still worked! It powered up, still showed a full charge, and booted up just fine!!! I actually called my provider to inquire about getting the Droid 4 with it. Let's see an iPhone go through that and live! The only parts that didn't fully survive was the battery, and the micro flash card. AMAZING!
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| My Beloved Droid 1 a Few Minutes Ago |
The WiFi in this thing will be the main link to my wireless network. Messages for the controllers will come from the Droid via blue-tooth linked to the blue-tooth module controlled by the chipKIT Pi. I might have to root it however so this might be more complicated than I thought.
Kootek BT2S Bluetooth TTL UART Module Board for Arduino
In order to get the WiFi messages to and from the project, there has to be a link to the Droid. That is where this device comes in. I know very little at this point, and need some board time with it to tell anything more, but the messages should be simple, and the range is just the other side of the door, so blue-tooth seemed more feasible than adding WiFi to the project.
chipKIT Pi
I will be using this board to handle blue-tooth communications with the Droid, and act as a communications hub with the other boards. The Teensy 3.0 has the same amount of memory and can handle most if not all of the complex light patterns, but this board can help with that as well as handle some DSP for triggering and building light patterns based on the movie clips audio.
The Raspberry Pi Version B
But he's a big setup to add. The ever-popular Raspberry Pi is an amazing board that actually runs a variety of Linux distros off a flash card using its flash card port. It can also output HDMI and analog composite video AND stereo audio! It has two USB ports as well. The redundancy I referred to would be WiFi backup using a dongle, or wired ethernet using its RJ45 connector, and be able to stream the movie clips to the Droid. I will be using an 8gb fast flash card so there is plenty of room for movies, music, light patterns, even snapped images and movies of our visitor reactions! There will also be room for MIDI compositions, and if I add a synthesizer board to this, that will come in handy!
Velcro One-Wraps
Heat Shrink Tubing
Who uses electrical tape anymore? Especially with the wonderful invention of heat shrink tubing! Available in many sizes and colors, it's inexpensive and perfect for sealing a wired connection, protecting it from shorts, exposure, especially to the elements. It is so easy to use, but nothing it does right can help to remind you to slide it onto the wire before you solder it in place, so get into a routine of clipping it first and sliding it on the wire before you even strip it. Apply heat via a heat gun (best), hair dryer (much slower), or even a lighter (risky) and the tubing shrinks to a form-fitting seal that stays put. Every electronics order I place includes some odd length or diameter I am low on.
Hookup Wire
Wire! I am going to need a lot of it, and although I envisioned using ribbon cable for the WS2812's after I cut and separate them from the strip they are lined up on, I realized when my 7805 regulator got piping hot that the 5vdc wire needs to be of sufficient gauge to handle the current. Ribbon cable might melt away. So I will be using a spool of 24 AWG gauge wire. Rated at 3.5 amps, this should do nicely. But because stranded wire has higher impedance and resistance, I may have to add a 100 ohm resistor on the data out of the Teensy 3.0. This is probably not necessary with the 3.3vdc to 5vdc interface module I will be using. I may also mix a variety of wiring. 24 AWG stranded for the 5vdc and ground, and solid gauge cat-5e for the data.
Tools!
You can never have enough. Period! You think you do, then you find you need something special for your bench that just can't be done with what you have. Go through life doing this shit long enough and you find you have enough special tools to build a space station. Now parts? That's another story, but you can never have enough of those either.
I have spent an eternity soldering with the wrong iron, the wrong solder, the wrong technique. Same goes for removing parts using the same wrong iron. I have done some upgrading of these short comings and things are a lot nicer now. I still do not have a scope, but it's coming soon enough.
For an iron, I'm using the Hakko FX-888. It has amazing control over temperature, and it heats up real fast! For heat-shrink work, and removing from my old board stock some devices I might need for this project, I am using the Atten 858D+ digital Hot Air Rework Station.
HC-SR501 Human Sensor Pyroelectric Infrared Module
What is it? A Borg hive? A space-based hydroponics node? A sculpture created by a bee that has finally leaped the evolutionary ladder and became creative on its path to replace us on Earth? NO! But it does look weird. It is a device that takes infrared radiation as it is emitted from warm objects and turns it into a pulse. Well, it is not exactly that simple. It is changes in PIR that triggers it, and all the support hardware is on the module to support the sensor so it's a nice addition. It will be able to 'see' when something alive comes up to the wreath, and that will be very, very helpful.
Totally uncharted territory here. Maybe not the midi territory, since I have played with midi since I was a kid. Back then, computers were not even capable of dreaming they would be as fast as they are today though, let alone their components would become as small as they are now. With speed, small size, and integration what it is today, delays in midi messages are a thing of the past. And complex circuits to produce polyphonic wave table synthesis are all packed into one tiny little chip! This Arduino shield breaks out the wonderfully amazing Atmel ATSAM2195. This chip contains all these features! Single Chip All-in-one Design, MIDI Control Processor, Serial and Parallel Interface, Synthesis, General MIDI Wavetable Implementation, General MIDI Compatible Effects: Reverb + Chorus, Spatial Effect, 4-band Stereo Equalizer, Stereo DAC. DR: 86 dB min, THD+N: -80 dB max, State of the art Synthesis for Products Providing Best Quality for Price, 64-voice Polyphony (without effects), 38-voice Polyphony + Effects, On-chip CleanWave™ Wavetable Data, Firmware, RAM Delay Lines, Audio Stereo Line Output, Typical Applications: Battery Operated Musical Keyboards, Portable Phones, Karaokes, QFN44 (7mm x 7mm) Package: Small Footprint, Small Pin Count, Low Power, 75 mW typ. Operating, Single 3.3V or Single 1.8V Power Supply, Built-in Power Switch and 3.3V to 1.8V Regulator. Yeah! WOW! There is a ton of things I can think of to do with this baby, but for now, it will play... oh man you are good! To guess that easily! CHRISTMAS MUSIC! HA HA!
More when I discover, build, and code it. =)
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