New year, new PCBs
February 25, 2011 at 1:33 pm 2 comments
Okay so it’s February already, but things are finally moving again with the project and a few new PCB’s are on order.
The previous design that we tried used a MIC5891 serial-input latched source driver. This seemed perfect on paper, but turned out not to work at all with 5v USB power because the IC drops too much voltage to drive the LEDs. Dang! And having at least the option to power by USB only is something we don’t want to sacrifice.
The new design by contrast uses discrete transistors to drive the LEDs, which are multiplexed by the microcontroller. This design can take a separate, higher input voltage, but also works fine with 5v. At least it does on the breadboard, we’ll have to wait and see how the PCB behaves!
Delivery is due in early March, news to follow shortly thereafter.
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Entry filed under: BlipBox, News and Updates. Tags: .
1.
floego | February 25, 2011 at 2:47 pm
Great news!
2.
Patient in Taipei | March 1, 2011 at 9:06 am
yay!