First DIY usable LED ring on the market?

[tekki]

Wow, this could be the first step of modding a BCR2000.

[MiL0]

Sure, we can do that! We would really appreciate it if those we supply samples to can post some photos, video, code, etc. of their progress or finished project for others to see how the LED Ring can be used.

Right now we only have 5 blue, 5 green, and 5 red units (manufacturing samples), so first come first serve!

email sales@mayhewlabs.com and let us know what you have in mind.

nice one

emailed!

[DjNecro]

BUMP!!!

Got the samples in the mail today and couldn't wait to start playing. This is going to be a quick teaser post since I have work stuff that needs completing...

First impressions: Very well built, nice clean traces, even soldermask across the board, silk screen is very well defined and very readable. My only suggestion would be to offer a second model type that rotates the leds 90 degrees (putting the connector on the left or right side). This would allow a smaller spacing between encoders that are mounted in a column. As it sits now, it is perfect for horizontal spacing.

I followed the directions provided and had the board up and running in less than 10 minutes (5 to solder, 5 to wire). I copied and pasted the example code and it worked perfectly the first time out of the gate. (There is one minor cosmetic bug due to referencing an array out of bounds, but that's not an issue since this is demo code).

I'll be making a more detailed post with plenty of assembly pictures, but for now these will have to do:

Oh, and a video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ66PkNUgZI

[DjNecro]

I finished my work early and got to play a little more

The first demo just shows the ring's leds being lit up one at a time at varying intervals. * bonus points for naming the TV show in the background, extra bonus points for naming the season and episode number *

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJrLZGCe8a4

The second demo shows the ring acting as a single channel vu meter, with the bottom led acting as a beat light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cepCbgGSTyI

[MiL0]

My demo units arrived the other day as well - thanks mr mayhew

nice videos - gonna have to try and get mine setup over the next few days as well... probably going to use mine as VU meters.

[DjNecro]

Hopefully I will have the time to get some sample code posted later today...

I have played and played and am loving the design of these things! The blue leds are bright enough out of the box, and in order to get the red/green units at the same brightness you will need to add a 2k resistor on the red, and a 1k resistor on the green unit (instructions will be posted eventually).

In the mean time, here is a HD video of various flashy effects. I took 4 videos of the same demo, one each with lights on/off and with/without a diffuser..

Check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKgXXLNhnQI

[MiL0]

haha nice one!

although i'm not sure how useful the led's would be behind the 'frosted' perspex? kinda hard to make out what position they're at I think? more of a visual thing, rather than practical.

looking forward to seeing some schematics of how you wired it up and some more code

[DjNecro]

"hand frosted" yeah clear plexi + sandpaper = teh crap!

I only used it to show what it would look like somewhat diffused... the leds were over 3cm away from the plexi.. much further than they usually would be. I want to clean up the code I have (and perhaps make a library out of it) and I hope to get it posted tonight...

Any specific functionality you could see being required? I have the normal ones, turn ring on, turn ring off, turn led on ring on/off, setRingState, etc... Would there be interest in some sort of animating ability? right now it would be up to yo in how to animate, but I'm sure I could whip up some sort of animator (similar to the demo code from the documentation).

Gotta run! a client's server is down

stupid computers....

[Mayhem]

DJ Necro -

A big THANKS for putting the videos together and exploring some possibilities!

Any specific functionality you could see being required? I have the normal ones, turn ring on, turn ring off, turn led on ring on/off, setRingState, etc... Would there be interest in some sort of animating ability? right now it would be up to yo in how to animate, but I'm sure I could whip up some sort of animator (similar to the demo code from the documentation).

At some point I am planning on doing an example of a 'fake' PWM with the LED Ring, which will be toggling an LED with each loop iteration for a basic brightness control of 1/2 duty, 1/3 duty, 1/4 duty.... This might be something to add to a library.

Just an update: SparkFun should have these up for sale on Thursday this week; I'll post a link when they post them!

[MiL0]

how much are they going to retail for you think?