Another Dollar Store Upgrade

A set of street lights with no lights!?

As far as I can tell they were designed to include a light source, as the pole is hollow and the base cap has a slot for a wire...

For those of us that know how to solder, there is an easy fix... An LED!

I decided to splurge and use an addressable programable LED (a ws2812b)

I soldered a wire to each of the 4 pins and added a dab of hot glue.

Before

After

Huge improvement!

Those in the know, might have noticed I didn't add a decoupling capacitor to the ws2812 neopixel.

I'll try to post a scopeshot of the output dataline to see what kind of trouble the IC might get into (or not) with the omission of the decoupling cap...

Top Replies

baldengineer over 1 year ago

It looks great!

At first, I thought you were just using the DD for scale.

But you're programming the ws2812 through it, aren't you?!
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dougw over 1 year ago

Neat job. 200% better.

The tree looks like it has wires too - does it light up or is it just the strain relief?
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fmilburn over 1 year ago

I have omitted the decoupling cap lots of times on WS2812 and have never had problems, usually but not always powered with batteries. At least not yet. I’m interested to see what the scope shows.
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kmikemoo over 1 year ago

Nice work! Look fantastic.
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robogary over 1 year ago

I've always wondered if a Dollar Store item's price in Canada is 1 CAN$ and the same item in the US is $1 USD. mmmmmm

I have to stay out of the Dollar Store. They sell Red Hots candy and I'm a Red Hots addict. Darn things cost $1.25 tho.

Nice job Christmas decorating Scottiebabe.
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scottiebabe over 1 year ago in reply to baldengineer

Thanks and yes! I am using the DD partly because its already setup also because I am interested to see if I can spot any funny business with the omission of a decoup cap.

The waveforms is maybe a little bare bones on the digital side, but in general I think its a great product.
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scottiebabe over 1 year ago in reply to dougw

Thanks for the kind words, I think it will look even better with a flickr animation

No, the one tree is a paint clay figurine and the other is a toliet brush/pipe cleaner cut in the shape of a tree with frosted tip. Though it still looks great.
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md_steve over 1 year ago in reply to robogary

There was a 25% / day inflation rate at our Dollar Store last year. I forget the exact date, but everything went from $1.00 to $1.25 overnight. Wouldn't you think they would have to change their name now?
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scottiebabe over 1 year ago in reply to fmilburn

Thanks for sharing your experience. My instinct is that for a small run with twisted leads it will probably be okay.. This IC runs the LEDs with constant current sources and the protocol should tolerate a brief glitch. I wouldn't recommend a long string with no caps but I am guessing a 30 cm hookup cable isn't going to be the end of the world.
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scottiebabe over 1 year ago in reply to kmikemoo

Thanks for the kind words, the end result is quite illuminating....
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