Imp004 LED strip light/multifunction PCB

Projects
1

Hi all,

I’m finishing up a personal project PCB design, and decided to throw it out for input before I finished. I’ll be publishing all of the files when I have a revision that I am happy with. I actually built this design already using Imp003, and had the first rev of PCBs manufactured by Seeed Studio. Unfortunately, the quality of boards that they make is just not sufficient for Imp003. The PCBs are not perfectly flat, and the radio power enable pin frequently doesn’t make contact. I’ve seen this issue on higher quality boards as well, but Seeed’s boards are only good for designs that need lower tolerance. I’ve had good luck with Gold Phoenix.

This design is intended to control all of the LED strip lights on the market. Neopixels, DotStars, standard 12V RGB strips, ect. If you power it with 5V it will level shift a CLK and MOSI line, and if you power it with 12V it has three PWM outputs for RBG strip lights.

In addition it will have two inputs for buttons, PIR sensors or other triggers, so you can complete this project with an Imp if you aren’t an Arduino fan. http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Stair-Lighting/

I’ll also be breaking out the wake pin, and a few others depending on how many header slots are available.

The PCB is designed for this enclosure, which will need to be milled for the power jack and any cables. Alternately, a custom top could be 3D printed. https://www.newageenclosures.com/enclosures/utility--desktop/network-cube.php

If anyone has other good ideas for related functionality, please comment.

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-Joel

2

DMX transceiver would be neat :slight_smile: I can share my sch designs if you need.

Very nice design with the 004 btw!

3

Would be nice to have connectors suitable for the strip terminations (especially on the 12v RGB strip) - wiring those up can be a pain?

4

btw, given that this is unlikely to be a low power design, you could certainly remove the 32kHz xtal and save some cost :slight_smile:

5

The headers are 0.1". Pololu stocks screw terminal in that pitch which I believe will accommodate 18 gauge wire.
Good point on the XTAL. I tend to place footprints for everything if I have room just in case I use the board for something else. I’ll mark that circuit as optional on the BOM.
DMX would be interesting but that will have to wait for a future rev.
I did think about adding circuitry to allow the LEDs to follow ambient sound/music.

6

Adding 0-10V outputs would allow control of many in-building light fixtures as well…

7

If you make the xtal optional, then you must stuff the XI load cap as a 0R resistor so the imp won’t try to start the non-existent xtal.

0-10V is nice but I believe you’d need a boost supply at this point, or at least require the device runs off 12v?

8

Oh, one last thing - you should remove the PCB under the imp004m antenna area. See our breakout board design.

9

I was wondering if I would get a comment on that. :slight_smile: I decided to make milling the enclosure easier by changing to top fire BlinkUp components so I can simply drill a round hole in the top and drop in a Bivar light pipe. Also changed to an 8A through hole power jack that will stay behind the enclosure walls and will also only need a single drill hole.

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