Jun 24, 2019
Hi there! Thanks for tuning in (or reading this text and then deciding not to tune in at all). Another episode with a mixed bag of semi-interesting topics.
Thanks for the feedback - the inter-segment jingle will be a bit less loud from now on. Poor ears.
We start off by counting pass & fail on this year's new year's resolutions, followed by mentioning a small inline PCB for driving LED-strips and so on. The PCB was used for 2 light effects so far - links to videos of both are given below.
Ran into a "gotcha" when dealing with LED-effects: intelligent LEDs stuck in "full brightness" mode, causing the supply to shit itself and the system to become unresponsive. (Quickfix: small delay between boot and start-of-effect at power-on.)
For the LED-effects, I measured rand() execution times (avr-gcc, avr-libc, ATmega168 @ 8 MHz) and was pleasantly surprised by its speed and predictability. Will use again.
Finally, some fuzzy guesstimates / measurements about what kind of voltage drop to expect when running current through long cables.
Relevant links:
Snapshot of my inline PCB: