FearOfTheDark's Hand Made Light for the 8th Annual BLF/OL Contest

Hey everyone,

Throwing my hat in a bit late in the game, hope that’s cool :slight_smile:

I’m building a lit-up sign that’ll utilize two strings of LEDs controlled by an Attiny13 MCU with my own (very simple) firmware.

It’ll be built out of multiple pieces of foam board (not standard flashlight materials, I know :laughing: that will be cut out and will house the LEDs inside and be covered by perspex plates.


Materials for the sign itself, electronics in next post :slight_smile:

Good luck with the build!
I’m curious where this is going to :slight_smile:

Welcome FearOfTheDark :-)

Thanks everyone! :slight_smile:

Quick update, I wrote the code for the sign. It has 4 modes: on, off, flashing, and flashing each letter independently. Pressing the button changes it from mode to mode and each cycle of all four modes decreases the speed of the flashing lights. Disconnecting the battery resets the speed to the fastest setting.

The next step is soldering the circuit, stay tuned for updates :slight_smile:

Welcome aboard!

Hey everyone,

Wanted to give y’all a quick update on my process. I completed the electronics and I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out. I only had a SOIC8 package of the Attiny so I had to use the “dead bug” method to solder it to the board. Check out some pics of the final result:

Close up of the board

Back of the board

Everything soldered together - the board, the battery holder and the LEDs

A quick video of the electronics and running through the different modes:

Would love to hear your thoughts :slight_smile:

Good progress and nice job coding it on your own! Perhaps brighter LEDs would be beneficial? I’ve played with those strings of lights and with 3 AAs it might not be visible from very far, especially if there is any other light around.

Welcome to BLF and to the contest. :sunglasses:

Hey guys,

Happy to report the sign is finished!! First off, wanted to share the final video of the sign in action:

Here are some behind the scenes shots of the assembly process:

Cutting out the letters


Measuring out and cutting the perspex


About to glue down the perspex


I cut out aluminum foil and glued it behind the LEDs as a reflector


The final sign before adding the electronics


The finished sign in all its glory :smiley: The light is actually white, it just looks blue in the pics and vid.

Hope you liked it! :slight_smile:

Just wanted to share a quick video of the sign in the dark. I looped it through the different modes and as you can see the flashing becomes slower with each cycle:

I had a ton of fun with this build and learned a lot while building it, especially with writing my own firmware :slight_smile:

Nice Finish and imagination on your sign and writing your firmware ‘FearOfTheDark’ :+1:
:heart_eyes:

Nice result. No idea what the sign says, but the build is really neatly done!

Nice :wink: I like how it looks :wink:
Well done!

Nicely done!

I always wanted to build lighted sign like that for my house number.