Maniacal Labs
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Jumbo1K: 32x32 LED Networked Display
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Weekend Project: NExuS
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The ESP8266: Taking the New Hotness for a Spin
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Weekend Project: POVStick
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24x24 LED Matrix Build
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Finally, A Windows Package Manager - With Chocolate!
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Dial-A-Song: Part 1
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Stick A Pin In It
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PCB Fail
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Doing things the "hard" way
Over two years ago, I bought this awesome display panel: 1484-02 It’s a 7.5” square, 32x32 resolution, 6mm LED spacing, panel that would normally be used for digital signage. Though it is a “dumb” display that requires CPU intensive multiplexing (it’s supposed to be driven by an FPGA or ASIC), with the right tools it can be way easier to use than building, ahem, other types of displays ;) I have covered this exact panel a few other times, but after a couple years of sitting in my LED storage it was time to finally make it something awesome.
Read more…NExuS Introduction I’ve had an NES (my wife’s actual childhood NES, in fact) sitting in my parts drawer, with the intent of ripping it apart, gutting it, and jamming in a Raspberry Pi to make an awesome emulation box since… well, ever since the Raspberry Pi came out.
Read more…ESP8266 You’ve probably heard about this little module by now; a cheap, wifi-enabled bit of wizardry that is all the rage. Using serial communication, you can talk to the device and send commands out to the interwebs.
Read more…To showcase how much the AllPixel and BiblioPixel can simplify your projects, we wanted to put together a fun project that really highlighted their versatility. So we decided to build a persistence of vision light painter, or POVStick as we keep calling it. The POVStick consists of 2 meters of 48 LED/m LPD8806 strips, for a total of 96 pixels vertical resolution. This is controlled by an AllPixel connected to a Raspberry Pi B+ with a USB WiFi module.
Read more…This project was briefly teased before, but it seemed like a good time for more details. Originally conceived as a coffee table build,it quickly morphed into what will eventually become a wall hanging and has been a test-bed for a lot of my LED work. Having worked a great deal with a variety of these digital LED strips, I noticed that in most cases they were manufactured in 0.
Read more…To the chagrin of the open source community, I’m a Windows guy. I do really like Linux based systems, but much of my professional career has remained at least partly in the Windows world. 15 years of using Visual Studio (the only Microsoft product I truly like) have brought me to prefer it greatly over any IDE out there. I even use it for all my Arduino/AVR work, but that’s another post.
Read more…Earlier this week, we got the great news that we have been accepted to the North Carolina Maker Faire. We’re absolutely ecstatic to get to share some of our projects with the public but it’s also been a great push to get some other projects done. I’ve had this particular project bouncing around my head for a couple of years now. I call it Dial-A-Song. Much of the inspiration came from They Might Be Giants, who used to leave recordings of their songs on their answering machine, which could be listened to by calling (718) 387-6962.
Read more…Stick a Pin in It I’ve been working on a side project that uses some of the WS2812 based LED strips, just like the “NeoPixel” strips from Adafruit. Unfortunately, I began having problems with the strips in that they suddenly stopped responding to any control signals being sent to them.
Read more…PCB Fail Ever since first trying KiCad and OSH Park I have been a little hooked on being able to throw together a custom PC, have it professionally manufactured, and shipped to me within a couple weeks.
Read more…I’m in the middle of designing a new Maniacal Labs product (more on that in another post) and have been working with a library intended for the ATMega328 but need it working on an ATTiny4313. If you ever feel cramped for flash space while working on an Arduino project, try out the ATTiny series of chips and you will quickly feel like 32KB of flash is downright massive! The ATTiny4313 is a decently capable chip, with only 5 less I/O pins than the ATMega328 but a somewhat less proportional 4KB of flash.
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