We've been having fun playing with the L293D driver chip. It's one of those things to see how much you can make it do by itself (like with any BEAM application!). Grant McKee has been experimenting with some simple additions to the chip to make it (unto itself) a suitable brain for a simple mini-sumo […]
3D Printed Treetop Star
Solar botics
December 9, 2014
Initially inspired by the Moravian Star on Instructables and the fact that we now carry all kinds of 3D printing filament, we decided to make one of our own glowy holiday star. We have used this thing as source files to create a similar treetop decoration of our own.
After some trial and error (due to the Slicer not cooperating)...
...we printed a whole forest of perfect wintery spiky star-ends.
And, well, we just had to have someone live there for a bit. In this case, a snowman:
Our addressable 5mm LEDs were well suited to light this contraption. We drilled a hole in the bottom of each spike..
..to fit the LED's domed part:
And then wired everything up. It wasn't pretty but the WS2812 LED that we used made it much easier than a conventional RGB LED: rather than 3 separate channels, the WS2812 LED only has a data in and data out. Chain them all together and they work like a charm!
And here's the final product, ready to light up our office with wonderful glowing lights!
MORE POSTS
Solarbotics at the Calgary City Teachers...
Solarbotics will be at the Calgary City Teachers' Convention Thursday & Friday February 11-12, 2016. We will demo a variety of educational kits for teachers to use in classrooms, including introductory kits to develop skills in programming, mechanical construction, and soldering. Come put a face to the name at booth 326 and find out how […]
Ringo - the great-grandson to the Photop...
We were pleased to see the Kickstarter for Ringo, the Photopopper-ish but much smarter version of our own ~17 year old design robot kit. The video showcases some pretty cool behaviors, and is easily one of those projects where we think "Jee, why didn't we do that?"
Wednesday Cool Links: Spiderbot, Solar S...
It's Wednesday! Hooray! Huzzah! We're celebrating because... Well, ok, we have nothing big to celebrate right now. So we're going to celebrate having nothing to celebrate with the traditional and only appropriate way possible... BROWSING THE INTERNET! Indeed, we've been celebrating this time-honoured tradition with steadfast dedication, and it's our pleasure to share it with […]
Solarbotics has been operating for more than 25 years, bringing electronics know-how and supplies to both the electronics professional and hobbyist. We'll be happy to help you too!
Solarbotics, Ltd. is not responsible for misprints or errors on product prices or information. For more information, please see our Terms and Conditions.
Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.