Category: led matrix

A common design language for watches has evolved ever since they first started popping up in the 1500s. Whether worn on the wrist or in a pocket, watches are relatively slim front to back, with the display mounted on the face. That’s understandable given the imperatives of human anatomy. Still, it’s not the only way […]
On the Hackaday.io page for his gorgeous “Sunrise Alarm Clock”, [The Big One] is quick to point out that his design is only inspired by Japanese lanterns, and does not use authentic materials or traditional woodworking techniques. Perhaps that’s an important fact to some, but we’ll just say that the materials used seem far less […]
Over the years we’ve seen countless ways of displaying the current time, and judging by how many new clock projects that hit the tip line, it seems as though there’s no end in sight. Not that we’re complaining, of course. The latest entry into the pantheon of unusual timepieces is this ESP32-powered desk clock from […]
Over the summer [ElectroSmash] put the finishing touches on the Arduino Audio Meter, a shield for the Arduino Uno that visualizes various aspects of an incoming audio signal on a set of four 8×8 LED dot matrices. Obsentisibly it’s for use on a guitar pedalboard, but thanks to the incredible documentation and collection of example […]
When we recently discussed the skills that we might wish to impart upon a youngster, one of those discussed was the ability to speak more than one language. If any demonstration were required as to why that might be the case, it comes today in [Byfeel]’s Notif’Heure, an ESP8266-powered clock and display (French-language, Google Translate […]
The archetypal “blink an LED” is a great starter project on any platform, but once the bug takes hold that quickly turns into an exploration of exactly how many LEDs a given microcontroller can drive. And that often leads to Charlieplexing. A quick search yields many copies of The Table describing how many LEDs can […]
In the practical world we live in, PCBs are often rectangles (or rectangles with rectangles, it’s just rectangles all the way down). When a designer goes to schematic capture things are put down on nice neat grid intersections; and if there isn’t a particular demand during layout the components probably go on a grid too. […]
[David Johnson-Davies] always wanted an illuminated button matrix for projects, but cost was never very friendly. That all changed when he discovered a cheap source of illuminated pushbuttons on Aliexpress, leading to this DIY 4×4 illuminated button matrix design which communicates over I2C. The button states can be read independently of setting the light pattern, […]
20,000 LEDs sounds like an amazing amount of blink. When we start to consider the process of putting together 20,000 of anything, and then controlling them all with a small piece of electronics the size of a postage stamp, we get a little bit dizzy. To be fair, we’re not sure that [yves-bazin] has put […]
We’ve all seen the 3D printed replicas of classic game consoles which house a Raspberry Pi; in fact, there’s a pretty good chance some of the people reading this post have one of their own. They’re a great way to add some classic gaming emulation to your entertainment center, especially compared to the bare PCB […]