So, I’m going to use Henne’s transceiver for an LED matrix. You coulda probably guessed, if you’d thought about it for a minute or three. Anyway, I fell back on my – ahem – process: first, draw the circuit in Adobe Illustrator and then build it on a breadboard. (I have been asked in the [...]

If you’ve visited my automated Christmas lights page, the letters DMX won’t be unfamiliar to you. For those too lazy to click, it’s an electronic lighting protocol. Two wire. Used extensively in stage shows. And, in recent months, adopted by the DIY Christmas lighting community. So, I’m working on an idea (I’ll post more when [...]

As can be seen from the dates between postings, I took an awful lot of time with this project – and yet, I never really accomplished my goal, which was to have five LEDs independently fading in and out like a candle, driven by an Atmel ATTiny13. I spent a lot of time with some [...]

If you’ve visited my web site on backyard railroad illumination, you know about my fixation with creating light that flickers as though it were a fire (either from candle or a fireplace). The first solution to that problem was to modify LED tea candles — readily available at crafts stores and even Walgreens — so [...]

In 2007 I played around with the PICAXE, a microprocessor sold by a non-profit in the United Kingdom that comes loaded with a BASIC-like interpreter (you can read more about it here and here). I built some lighthouse beacons and a railroad crossing light using the device. It had one drawback: I had to write [...]