This was my last take on a circuit to drive the Sawyer Star, an 8×8 LED array that I have spent more than three years adapting from work from more than a dozen people — before I gave up. This schematic is basically the one drawn by Mike Ardai (N1ist) for his Color Stick project. I changed [...]

Hmm. Sixteen months. My how time flies when you aren’t posting to a blog. Life happens and my involvement in designing things that flashed LEDs wavered with my inability to get a working prototype for the Sawyer Star, a 64-LED array/matrix that is to be driven by

It’s been a few months since I last posted here … I don’t think there are any constant visitors who’ve been bummed out about the lack of activity, but I apologize nonetheless. Since we last spoke I threw the LED matrix project out to the Do It Yourself Christmas community to see if I could [...]

For those of the opinion that I fell off the face of the earth, fear not: I merely got involved in non-electronics, such as dealing with a kitchen remodel and unwell pets. That said, I also focused a bit in recent months on my Christmas lights show and have documented there a few of the [...]

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 [...]