I failed miserably to complete my Auto Hack project by the deadline because some critical parts did not arrive in time. Apparently they reached Canada a week ago, but I guess it is a big country to get lost in. However the story has a cheerful side to it. I had designed the project to use 3 printed circuit boards which I had fabricated at PCBWay. They charged $5 for 10 cards and they arrived in time - it only took them 1 day to make the cards and a few days for shipping. The cheerful part is they included a cute PCB ornament that looked like this:
It is pretty impressive that they would include a free PCB with 8 smart RGB LEDs, a switch and a battery holder in a $5 order.
The PCB was designed by Salvatore Raccardi.
Here is a little video showing the ornament in action:
I looked up the LEDs and they indeed have an embedded control chip that allows them to run from a wide range of voltages and randomly flash the RGB LEDs.
I have designed my own card to use these LEDs and ordered a bunch - they only cost about $0.03 each. However the cards will arrive long before the LEDs.
Anyway, have fun with the idea and have a great holiday season.
