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