Thread: LED candles from scratch

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Originally Posted by imindless

I would be interested in learning the exact microcontroller (which you have already told) and every other component you need to create one of these and maybe a step by step guide to setting one up. I am more of a hands on learner than a buy-it-now type of guy if I can be, for the most part. So if you would be willing to do a tut on it that would be awesome

Oi... That might be a bit more than I can take on!

There's an awful lot of disciplines and software behind that relatively simple item. On the one hand there's electrical engineering to design the circuitry, printed circuit board design and layout (and software to do that) and then real time embedded systems programming (using the 'C' programming language). That's just the implementation side of things and doesn't really cover design and just the background in the art to know *how* to do it. (Pulse width modulation, realtime systems, state machines, etc.)

I'm not trying to make it all sound like impossible-to-learn arcane black magic; I'm just not really sure where to even start and I think it'd take weeks of time and dozens of lessons to get to the point where you'd be 'dangerous'!

That having been said, I found this link online (it's even sorta Halloween themed!) and it looks like a pretty good introduction to microcontrollers and programming concepts in general:

http://todbot.com/blog/spookyarduino/

The 'arduino' platform is a pretty common hobbiest controller system that has LOTS of online information. Another good starting point would be:

http://www.ladyada.net/learn/arduino/

You just have to be prepared that you'd basically stepping in to electronics and programming at a minimum just to get to the "blink a light" stage. It's very doable for anyone with an interest and a few dollars to invest in some basic stuff, but it will require many hours to get to the point where you can do seemingly very basic things. (that turns off/burns out a lot of early engineering students)

If you have an interest in learning the basics and working through everything I'd suggest the tutorials above to get your feet wet. If you're more into the destination than the journey, buying pre-built modules may be more fun in the long run. Everyone's different in that regard...

-Clay

Well if you wanted to or thought about it, this might be just the group project that a lot of us would love to try. The group tut is spread out depending on how intricate the work is and we get together at a designated day/time and all work on it together and the teacher walks everyone through it and that way if they have any questions everyone can pitch in and help.

I will check out the links and see if anything would be helpful though.

Thanks again for all the info! I imagine, getting the surface mount LEDS on a ribbon would be easier to wire, cause those little buggers are SMALL and don't have the normal long wire leads like regular LEDS. I'm curious to try this! With the leds being such a broad angle, are your "flames" just as bright at the tip?

Originally Posted by AuraofForeboding

I'm curious to try this! With the leds being such a broad angle, are your "flames" just as bright at the tip?

They're really consistent brightness in the plastic. Even though the LED pattern is wide angle because the 'flame' sits right on top of the LED all the light is captured in the plastic and illuminates it really evenly.

-Clay

Thank you for such an in-depth and helpful tutorial. The flickering is so realistic!

Just a random update-- I've purchased most of the parts for a batch of the controllers, so I'll definitely have these available before the season this year. Hopefully early spring.

We're remodeling our business at the moment, so it'll busy with that and it'll probably be February until I'm really able to finish things up, but I'll get to it ASAP thereafter.

I'm changing how things work a little for the 'sellable' version. It has two knobs on it which are used for selecting the particular effect desired (candle light, fireflies, blinking eyes, etc.) and then once the effect is selected the knobs control the intensity/timing of the effect. (That way you can just dial in what you're looking for without needing any programming expertise or equipment to go with it.)

-Clay

Love the skull candles, but I'm really diggin' the flaming pumpkin ! Awesome !!!!!

Awesome effect! When you get the boards built I'll take 4.

-Mark

Thinking about it, I'd love several circuit boards too! These are really awesome controllers

Originally Posted by Terra

Thinking about it, I'd love several circuit boards too! These are really awesome controllers

I totally agree. Looking forward to switching my candles over to LED's. I'm in for at least 3, maybe 4.

Randy