Smart String Project 2012

[tbone321]

That's ok, just give him time. He has a lot of work to do yet with his Halloween display.   

[chrisatpsu]

I've been waiting on these...
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and these to come in from china
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the pins, i'm soldering to the adapter pcb's and the cables plug right into them, and go to the dumb flex strips.
if a node fails, I can unplug the nodes, and leave the strips in place.
also, i'm using the 3 wire connectors to plug each node into the next (and to the SSC)

[Jeffl]

I'm getting excited for next year.  I thought there was a holiday in China last week or a couple weeks ago.

[chrisatpsu]

PCB adapters


TM1804 IC's


4pin headers (circle ends)


Dumb Strip Adapters


.1uF capacitors


6.8k resistors


sample node working


almost 25m dumb strips

[Jeffl]

I'm not very good at Wheel of Fortune.   Can I have a clue instead of a vowel?

[chrisatpsu]

that's almost all of the components to build my arches

[chrisatpsu]

after about 7 hrs of soldering soic8 chips to a pcb...   I'm done with this part... 
80 done

[rm357]

Cool.
It looks like you are making micro dumb string controllers using just the 1804 chip.

How much current can one of those puppies sink before it goes into meltdown?
How many 3-led sections per chip?

[chrisatpsu]

i'm using 30cm of dumb flex. (3 sections of 3 rgbleds, or 9 led's total) @ 60mA per channel.

[chrisatpsu]

next step was to solder on the 4pin headers on each side of the pcb...


then attach the connectors onto the end of each section of flex strip...

[skrantzman]

OK, I see where you are going with this, and I like the idea. I am curious about cost comparisons, 8 sections of dumb string - pcbs - chips - connectors - time / per arch Vs 1 smart string and and 1 SSC.

[chrisatpsu]

about $25.30 per Arch (not including the thinwall pvc, or the SSC)

EDIT:
I use 8 pairs of 3 core connectors to make the wiring harness easy to get to. I could remove them and lower the price $7.50
(i could also solder directly to the strips, solder directly to the pcb, but i chose this way to make to easier to test and assemble.

[skrantzman]

Wow, a lot less than I thought.  The time is the big factor, but could be worth the savings given the added flexability to not only assemble, but to also remove and replace a bad section quickly if needed.  I was planning on doing arches next year, now it looks like I may have another option in that design.  Can't wait to see some test videos.

Good Luck,

Steve

[tbone321]

Where are you getting those connectors?

[chrisatpsu]

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