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The LED Toy is a matchbox-sized electronic circuit, which uses motion
to produce 2D images with a single line of flashing LEDs. The design is based
on an
Atmel
AVR
microcontroller. Program (firmware) and images can be updated over an
RS-232C port from a PC.
This project aims to provide all the information necessary for building such a device. This includes a detailed description of the production process, using readily available equipment. This description also serves as a reference for unrelated and independent development work, illustrating that the use of modern components is easy and cost-effective. We focus particularly on resources available in Argentina, list sources for tools, components, and other material needed, and try to work with local companies or individuals willing to provide kits for hobbyists or even selling completely built devices. We hope that this project will be useful not only for the entertainment value of owning such a LED Toy, but will also enable hobbyists, small companies, and educational institutions to experience that efficient use of modern electronics is no more difficult than that of antiquated techniques, and to apply this knowledge. The history of how this project came into being and other background information can be found here. |
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UNDER CONSTRUCTION ! Modern electronic circuits use tiny components, which are optimized for automated assembly. Manually building circuits using such components is often considered difficult or even impossible. We describe a complete build process, illustrating how this can be accomplished with tools and material easily available to hobbyists, small companies, and educational institutions. In Argentina, low-budget microcontroller designs tend to use obsolete technology, because of the perceived difficulty and cost of using modern alternatives. One main goal of this project is to give step-by-step instructions for overcoming the imaginary obstacles, and to help to coordinate assistance for the few real difficulties. In particular, we document:
The following documents are available:
Note: Soon, it will be useful if someone could translate this material to Spanish, but please don't start yet, as there are still major changes happening. |
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The hardware comprises the board in the LED Toy, which can be connected with a simple adpter cable to an RS-232C interface. The electronics are designed with Kicad. There are also some mechanical drawings, done with Xfig. The hardware is constantly under development. Please be sure to read the BUGS file included in the distribution. The current version of the hardware design is ledtoy-hw-a2 (70 kB), released 12-OCT-2006. Changes since the previous version:
Older versions can be found here, and even older versions (using a PIC microcontroller) here. |
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The firmware is the program that runs on the LED Toy. It is written in C and translated using the AVR toolchain. The current version of the firmware is ledtoy-fw-a2 (23 kB), released 7-OCT-2006. Changes since the previous version:
Older versions can be found here, and even older versions (using a PIC microcontroller) here. |
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UNDER CONSTRUCTION ! The host software allows the interactive generation of images, sequences, and the composition of a downloadable binary containing them plus the firmware. For now, all this is developed for Linux. The current version of the host software is ledtoy-sw- ( kB), released . Changes since the previous version: Older versions can be found here. |
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Drawing new images is very easy. Here are a few considerations for making and for contributing new images.
The current version of the image collection is
ledtoy-img-2
(4 kB), released 28-SEP-2006.
Changes since the previous version:
Older versions can be found here. |
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General discussion of the LED Toy and issues related to the project takes
place on the
ledtoy
mailing list. Also announcements of new versions are posted to this
list.
The mailing list is archived at http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?forum=ledtoy-general |
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In general, we use the
GNU General Public License
(GPL)
for all material related to this project. The project contains elements
that may not easily be considered "code", such as schematics, the PCB
layout, and images. However, the spirit of the GPL should also be
applicable to these items. As a consequence, they are licensed under the
GPL, with an additional explanation of how to apply the terminology of
the GPL.
Such an explanation is an integral party of the respective license.
Please see the individual packages for the exact licensing terms.
For further discussion of hardware licenses, please refer to The License Zone of the Open Collector project. There is also an older article where Richard Stallman expresses some thoughs on the issue: Richard Stallman -- On "Free Hardware". |
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| Coming soon. |
| Last update: |