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RE: Finisher Prize for Light Up Your Life Design Challenge

Shishir — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 07:56:53 GMT

Really great review, most of your content is sort of a standard for new members to learn from. Really appreciate the in depth explanation and details.

Finisher Prize for Light Up Your Life Design Challenge

misaz — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 22:45:42 GMT

Hello Element14 Community,

Right before leaving to Christmas holidays, I receive my finisher prize for participating in Light Up Your Life Design Challenge sponsored by Würth Elektronik. Before digging into reward, let’s rewind what I did as part of challenge. I joined as non-sponsored challenger with intention to make device for automated analysis and testing of RGB LED strips. Most likely it was not the coolest contest entry, but I like it. As part of challenge, I dig into interesting topics like fault tolerant LEDs, described various types of interfaces, tried combine multiple types of LEDs on single chain, and so on. After all, I combined all these and made prototype of automated testing tool. For more details, you can read over forum and project posts which I wrote as part of challenge:

I did not win any of main prize. It was obvious considering very high quality of entries of others (and their fun and cool ideas, compared to my pretty boring helper technical tool). But participation still qualified me for at least finisher prize and this post is about it. Helping hands, magnifier and shrink tubes were offered as finisher prize, but because I all of these already have, I asked Element14 for replacement prize and they did their best to get it. So, instead, I’ve got brand new Arduino Uno Q which cost slightly less than originally offered kit.

Arduino Uno Q (2GB)

While you probably heard about it, let’s briefly explain it. It is new board from Arduino. On a single board it combines MPU running Linux with MCU running Zephyr. Main processor is no longer MCU clocked in range of MHz, but rather CPU clocked in range of GHz. The idea is not completely new concept, for example Latte Panda do the same on many of their x86 boards for years, but it is still quite unique on the market.

This combination allows completely new applications. While most people speak about AI, Machine Learning, Computer Vision etc, I would like to mention that it also allows many “conservative” applications like logging to hard drives, much better HMI displays with reasonably well working 3D GPU, full featured networking stack in Linux and many other while still somehow remaining most properties of Arduino.

But none of these was actually my motivation for getting it. My motivation was mainly opportunity to dive into Qualcomm platform. While the platform is very closed source similarly to Broadcom on Raspberry Pi, there is huge amount of “documentation” available online which come from long-term running reverse engineering efforts. Compared to Broadcom chips which originally designed for TV Set Top Boxes and similar, these Qualcomm chip targeted smart phones primarily, and obviously, there was much bigger demand on reverse engineering these. In fact, it is obvious for example from pinout. On pin header near power button there are two signals called Volume+ and Volume-. I think you have idea what device typically has these buttons. Despite acquisition of Arduino by Qualcomm is kind of shady, I think, community will enjoy hacking this device for several next years.

Power-up and first thought

You can use it as “normal” Arduino by connecting it to PC using USB cable, but this one you can use in Single Board Computer mode and you can use it as a standalone computer. For SBC mode, you need USB-C Hub. It may sound quite weird at the first look, but technically it does not restrict this Arduino to some predefined list of connectors which Arduino think that they should be enough for everybody. Instead, you can use any set of ports you need – you just buy hub which satisfy your requirements. If you need 2 USB you buy hub with 2 USB, if you need 5 USBs, you buy hub with 5 USBs, etc. While there are many options, for using it “as PC”, you need at least HDMI for display, PD for powering and at least one USB for mouse/keyboard. Especially, do not forget about powering, otherwise you will likely need to power it through pin headers.

Considering CPU is not flagship and there is quite low of memory, system is surprisingly fast and responsive. It is obviously not as seamless as my i7-9700K desktop, but compared to the older generations of Raspberry Pi with similar processors, it is quite good and I was very surprised. Software is quite optimized as well. It uses decent mix of Arduino modifications with otherwise standard Debian system. You can find modifications on Arduino Github.

While feeling is generally good, it has some limitations, for example, Chromium can very quickly trigger Out of Memory killer. 2GB is not much memory for Chromium. It is quite limiting when searching for documentation, forums, etc directly on device.

First Sketch

Considering it is reward for RGB LED Design Challenge organized by Würth Elektronik, first electronic part which I connected to this Arduino was RGB LEDs from Würth. Little bit challenging was that FastLED library is not ported to new Uno Q yet and fails to compile, but after design challenge I am experienced enough to quickly write my own driver. I did not want to bother with complex Arduino-Zephyr-STM32HAL environment, so I write my own driver for generating properly timed signal using STM32 timer. I controlled it manually controlled by directly writing and reading registers. It makes sketch quite long, bot work nicely.

[View:https://youtu.be/KGyR_OAy9og:640:360]

[embed:dc8ab71f-3b98-42d9-b0f6-e21e02a0f8e2:fe2f0dac-054f-4dd3-a918-6a941d43b58a:type=c_cpp&text=%23include%20%3CArduino.h%3E%0A%23include%20%3CArduino_RouterBridge.h%3E%0A%23include%20%3CArduinoGraphics.h%3E%0A%23include%20%3CArduino_LED_Matrix.h%3E%0A%0A%23define%20LEDS%204%0Auint32_t%20buff%5BLEDS%20%2A%203%5D%3B%0A%0AArduinoLEDMatrix%20matrix%3B%0A%0Avoid%20setup%28%29%20%7B%0A%20%20Monitor.begin%28%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.begin%28%29%3B%0A%20%20for%20%28int%20i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20LEDS%20%2A%203%3B%20i%2B%2B%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20buff%5Bi%5D%20%3D%200x88888888%3B%0A%20%20%7D%0A%20%20pinMode%285%2C%20OUTPUT%29%3B%20%2F%2F%20PA11%0A%20%20float%20scaleR%20%3D%200.07%3B%0A%20%20float%20scaleG%20%3D%200.01%3B%0A%20%20float%20scaleB%20%3D%200.12%3B%0A%20%20setLED%280%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleR%20%2A%2040%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleG%20%2A%20101%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleB%20%2A%20181%29%29%3B%0A%20%20setLED%281%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleR%20%2A%2051%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleG%20%2A%2071%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleB%20%2A%20186%29%29%3B%0A%20%20setLED%282%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleR%20%2A%20115%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleG%20%2A%20140%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleB%20%2A%20216%29%29%3B%0A%20%20setLED%283%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleR%20%2A%20130%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleG%20%2A%2090%29%2C%20%28uint8_t%29%28scaleB%20%2A%20238%29%29%3B%0A%20%20Monitor.println%28%22Init%20done%22%29%3B%0A%7D%0A%0Avoid%20loop%28%29%20%7B%0A%20%20delay%281000%29%3B%0A%20%20showLEDs%28%29%3B%0A%0A%20%20matrix.beginDraw%28%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.stroke%280xFFFFFFFF%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.textScrollSpeed%2850%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.textFont%28Font_5x7%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.beginText%280%2C%201%2C%200xFFFFFF%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.println%28%22%20%20%20Thank%20you%22%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.endText%28SCROLL_LEFT%29%3B%0A%20%20matrix.endDraw%28%29%3B%0A%7D%0A%0Avoid%20setLED%28int%20index%2C%20uint8_t%20r%2C%20uint8_t%20g%2C%20uint8_t%20b%29%20%7B%0A%20%20if%20%28index%20%3E%3D%20LEDS%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20return%3B%0A%20%20%7D%0A%0A%20%20uint32_t%20data%5B3%5D%20%3D%20%7B%20g%2C%20r%2C%20b%20%7D%3B%0A%20%20for%20%28int%20i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%203%3B%20i%2B%2B%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20uint32_t%20bitmask_rd%20%3D%200x80%3B%0A%20%20%20%20uint32_t%20bitmask_wr%20%3D%200x60000000%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%0A%20%20%20%20while%20%28bitmask_rd%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20if%20%28data%5Bi%5D%20%26%20bitmask_rd%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20buff%5Bindex%20%2A%203%20%2B%20i%5D%20%7C%3D%20bitmask_wr%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%20else%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20buff%5Bindex%20%2A%203%20%2B%20i%5D%20%26%3D%20~bitmask_wr%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20bitmask_rd%20%3E%3E%3D%201%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20bitmask_wr%20%3E%3E%3D%204%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%0A%20%20%7D%0A%7D%0A%0Avoid%20showLEDs%28%29%20%7B%0A%20%20noInterrupts%28%29%3B%0A%20%20%0A%20%20RCC-%3EAPB1ENR1%20%7C%3D%20%281%20%3C%3C%204%29%3B%0A%20%20TIM6-%3EPSC%20%3D%2014%3B%20%2F%2F%2013.3333%20MHz%0A%20%20TIM6-%3EARR%20%3D%203%3B%20%2F%2F%20ie.%204%20but%20STM32%20need%20one%20more%20clock%20cycle%20to%20update%0A%20%20TIM6-%3ECNT%20%3D%200%3B%0A%20%20TIM6-%3ECR1%20%3D%201%3B%0A%0A%20%20for%20%28int%20i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20LEDS%20%2A%203%3B%20i%2B%2B%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20uint32_t%20bitmask%20%3D%200x80000000%3B%0A%20%20%20%20while%20%28bitmask%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20uint32_t%20bssr%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20if%20%28buff%5Bi%5D%20%26%20bitmask%29%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20bssr%20%3D%20%281%20%3C%3C%2011%29%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%20else%20%7B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20bssr%20%3D%20%281%20%3C%3C%20%2816%20%2B%2011%29%29%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20while%20%28%28TIM6-%3ESR%20%26%201%29%20%3D%3D%200%29%20%7B%7D%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20TIM6-%3ESR%20%3D%200%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20GPIOA-%3EBSRR%20%3D%20bssr%3B%0A%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20bitmask%20%3E%3E%3D%201%3B%0A%20%20%20%20%7D%0A%20%20%7D%0A%20%20%0A%20%20TIM6-%3ECR1%20%3D%200%3B%0A%20%20interrupts%28%29%3B%0A%7D%0A]

Bonus: USB Type-C Hub Disassembly

I bought cheapest USB Type-C hub which satisfy my requirements: PD, 1xHDMI, 1xUSB 3.0, >=2xUSB 2.0. There is quite a lot of hubs with these parameters, so I chose one which supports 4K@60Hz display output on HDMI, and it was surprisingly one of the cheapest while there are many more expensive supporting only 30Hz display at 4K resolution. (I am in Czech Republic, in your country, offering likely differs)

But buying cheapest sometimes is not the best idea. While hub satisfy everything I need, it broke when plugging HDMI cable for first time. Mechanical design is not good. I basically pushed cable into it, but I pushed whole PCB including USB cable from the back side of case. While it is easy to fix, I took that opportunity, pulled it out completely first and took a look to PCB before fixing it:

It is quite smart design, I thought there would be single SOC which will handle everything, but this has several chips for various purpose. After observing differential pairs, I think it is connected in this way:

Such diagram nicely shows possible bottlenecks of the devices but unluckily nowadays sellers typically show beautiful photos and visualization instead of technical description. I like that important signals and paths (USB 3.0) and PD (claimed as “up to 100W”) are almost direct paths and there are no possibly bugy or limiting chips on their paths. While I like it from electronics design point of view, mechanically it is disaster.

Closing

At the end I would like to say thank you to Würth Elektronik for sponsoring challenge and Element14 for organising it. I would like to thank all who spend time by reading contest forum posts. For me it was nice opportunity to test various Würth LEDs and play with them. They were on my wish list for long time and this challenge was perfect opportunity to buy them and play with them.

Finally, I would like to mention that if you are interested in getting free Arduino Uno Q which I briefly described in this article, there is still open RoadTest (at the time of writing this post) where you can get one for free. If you join and get selected, you get one free Arduino Uno Q for review.

Light o'clock - Preface - OUTATIME

Anthocyanina — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 01:39:12 GMT

Oh, life, you and your ways...

When I saw the announcement for this challenge, I thought it would be the best opportuity to bring an old project idea to life, and so I wrote my application, and entered the selection process; when I was selected as one of the official applicants, I got really excited and started preparing for it, but I didn't expect a different challenge to present itself and take over everything!

Back in 2024 I experienced a sudden vision change, where halos started appearing around lights, even faint ones, and my photophobia, which was already annoying, became much worse. A visit to the doctor resulted in them sending me to the ER and me having an MRI brain scan done (which thankfully came out normal) and then being sent to all the eye exams. For most of 2025, as this was being studied, the exams came out normal, but then, around october I had an electroretinogram done, and that one didn't look good. With that, and being sent to genetic testing for vision related pathologies, and that some form of cone-rod distrophy became what they were (and still are) looking for, and what i could find about that was just no good, and everything became overwhelming, and working on a project centered around light felt icky at best, knowing i would be working on somehing i could possibly not enjoy, yeah, I removed myself completely from this, and basically put my life on pause while i dealt with all that.

My vision hasn't worsened, at least not significantly, since october 2024, and now, seeing things more calmly, and also, good news! genetic test came out negative for anything known related to vision pathologies, I think it's time to resume this project as well as to take on some others.

So! what is this project going to be about?

I have a really old computer keyboard which doesn't have backlit keys, so keyboarding in the dark is a bit cumbersome, especially when i need to use characters which aren't in my daily repertoire so they're also not in my muscle memory (also, darkness isn't great for dealing with typos), so I wanted to make a keyboard light. Another minor inconvenience I come across often is not having a visible clock all the time, and when I'm playing a full screen game, and for some reason I want to quickly know what time it is, alt-tabbing then hovering the cursor at the bottom of the screen to make the task bar come up to see the time isn't the most convenient thing, so I also wanted to make the keyboard light into a clock.

My idea is to make a binary clock (trade one minor inconvenience for another, isn't that the maker way?) with the keyboard light, which at the press of a button (maybe a mouse button so it's always there?) displays the time, and then goes back to its keyboard light duties after a short period.

How will it work?

To count to 24 in binary we need at least 5 bits, so that makes the number of light zones easy to figure out: 5. But, that would only allow for hour representation, there would be no granularity, so I thought to represent 5 minute intervals with color, so that needs 12 colors, 12 colors which have to be distinct enough from each other to quickly tell qhich 5 minute interval they are in. Let's get an idea of how it would work:

Let's say it's 17:45, so, 17 in binary is 10001:

and the 45? let's make it blue for now:

This example made me think of even more granularity, to be able to have a resolution of 1 minute by having the hour be solid white, the minute being color, but also blinking, and also using the 5 light areas to represent the minutes within the 12 chunks of 5 minutes that the different colors allow.

Let's consider 17:47 now:

The LSB is on the right, so we have 17 from the white lights, we see a blue light so we know we're in the 17:45 to 17:49 region, and we see the blue in the third light area, so we know it's 17:47. But how do we know there isn't a white light hiding under the blue one? The minute indicator will blink, so it will be on, like above, for one second, and off, like below, for another second:

Is reading this clock more complicated than alt-tabbing then hovering over the task bar? maybe. Is it more fun? definitely!

So, with no time left in the challenge's clock, posting this preamble is a way to motivate myself to continue working on this project, and keep you all updated!

RE: Light o'clock - Preface - OUTATIME

Anthocyanina — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:17:27 GMT

oh! it will definitely see some use. it will take *time* to get used to the clock aspect of it, but the keyboard light will really eat those MTBF hours!

RE: Light o'clock - Preface - OUTATIME

colporteur — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 13:12:17 GMT

Your project when complete can sit on the shelf next to your pocket protectors and calculator hip cases. Another testament to pure geek!

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 02:35:30 GMT

Thanks DAB

Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 08:34:50 GMT

Hello,

I am happy to share that today morning I received the parcel with Element14 stickers, and I realized that it is the runners up price for the Light Up Your Life design challenge.

It was indeed a real surprise to me as there was no tracking or idea that it is going to arrive this soon. I am happy that it arrived before holidays are going to begin so that I can use it for my holiday and post full reviews.

But here is first glimpse. Glad to share as I am the first one to receive it as it seems.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 02:34:39 GMT

arvindsa I mean this one.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

DAB — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 20:44:35 GMT

Well earned.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 15:25:50 GMT

Thank you robogary . Sure.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

robogary — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:56:34 GMT

Those surprise deliveries are the best !! A little bling goes a long way.

Congrats on your new treasures.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

arvindsa — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:47:53 GMT

JoRatcliffe you shoulf hand out stickers too :)

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:26:33 GMT

hahaha

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:21:34 GMT

Yes, indeed.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:21:00 GMT

Not stickers though, but there was logo everywhere on the Box. I think they use element14 cello tape.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

arvindsa — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:13:07 GMT

embeddedguy

Man. You've got 8 hands in total.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

arvindsa — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:11:05 GMT

Nice.. I'm getting mine tomorrow. Element14 stickers? Nice. One more addition to my decade old project box.

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

JoRatcliffe — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 13:01:57 GMT

I'm glad it arrived so speedily, thank you for letting us know. Sounds like you have plenty of helping hands now! Enjoy 🙂

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

E14Alice — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:45:16 GMT

You are in luck, it looks like the pickers have put two extra ones in haha

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

embeddedguy — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 12:08:18 GMT

Thank you, Alice.

Yes, indeed it is. Seems there is extra one piece for finishers price. I received three helping hands.!

RE: Runners-up price for Light Up Your Life arrived

E14Alice — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 10:07:23 GMT

That's great to hear!

I am so glad everything has turned up in one piece.

Congratulations once again!

RE: RGB MATRIX 3D printing parts arrive

embeddedguy — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:57:57 GMT

Not yet. I think I will soon. Thanks!

RGB MATRIX 3D printing parts arrive

embeddedguy — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:23:02 GMT

It was a quite interesting to take part in Light Up Your Life challenge and now the deadline for project submission is over I am still doing something that I did not have time to do during the challenge.

First thing I thought that I am really missing an enclosure for the device. So, I have created a 3D printing object and sent it to robu.in.

For the design I used open source tinkercad.io.

Today, I received the 3D printed enclosure. Here are some photos.

I am still waiting for the missing LEDs to arrive and thanks to Arvind SA for sending me these LEDs.

{gallery}My Gallery Title
IMAGE TITLE: 3D enclosure with transparent top

IMAGE TITLE: THEN IMAGE DESCRIPTION
IMAGE TITLE: THEN IMAGE DESCRIPTION
IMAGE TITLE: THEN IMAGE DESCRIPTION
IMAGE TITLE: THEN IMAGE DESCRIPTION

{gallery}My Gallery Title

IMAGE TITLE: 3D enclosure with transparent top

IMAGE TITLE: THEN IMAGE DESCRIPTION

RE: RGB MATRIX 3D printing parts arrive

embeddedguy — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:57:14 GMT

Thanks.

Just like we all look good in colorful cloths in the festive season😆

RE: RGB MATRIX 3D printing parts arrive

arvindsa — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:53:50 GMT

You have not received the LEDs yet? Nice enclosure..