Looking for cool way of wowing that special someone on Valentines Day/birthday/whatever? Build her a flashing heart made from LEDs driven by a programmable microcontroller. Les' gadget is simple to build and made from easily-obtainable parts. The unique thing about this design is the LEDs are in an X-Y matrix so each LED is addressable. This allows an unlimited combination of displayed patterns for the heart - not like some other designs out there! Source code and schematics are all available here and if you're not into hand wiring, even the PCB can be had for a small fee. Diamonds may be a girl's best friend but gadgets are forever.
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For Les Grant's complete instructions to build your own Flashing Heart, click here .
Flashing Heart Parts List | ||
---|---|---|
Amt | Part Description | Allied Part # |
1 |
9V Power Supply STA-9530A |
928-9685 |
2 |
Ceramic Cap 27pF |
881-5122 |
3 |
Ceramic Cap 100nF |
507-0218 |
1 |
Crystal 12 Mhz |
895-0687 |
1 |
Diode 1N4148 |
431-0614 |
5 |
PNP Transistor BC557 |
431-0475 |
1 |
Rectifier 1N4002 |
266-0002 |
30 |
Red LED T-1 3/4 |
679-9981 |
1 |
Regulator LM340T-5 |
288-0525 |
5 |
Resistor 2.2K .25W |
832-0724 |
6 |
Resistor 120 ohms .25W |
895-3139 |
Additional parts required: Atmel AT89C2051 MCU; Circuit board or perf board; Eprom (optional) 24C16 |
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