TheVaporTrail

Antibes, France

This sign is trying to say that if you jump (or is it dance?) over the wall and fall 100 feet into the wave below that you will probably get hurt. You don't really need a sign to figure that out, especially if you are looking down.

Crossbar by OG Style

OG Style built his own version of Crossbar (post or page). I really like the openness of the 4x4 matrix. Also, since he used copper wires instead of steel, he won't have the problem I have where the solder breaks away after awhile.

Cable Électriques

Another picture from a trip to Paris this year. These old enamel signs have so much style and detail.

Along the Seine, Near Notre Dame

They are going to be so mad when they get home!

I noticed these bricked-up doorway and windows while in Paris earlier this year. Something about the way they were carefully filled-in and that the window frames and doorway have not been touched make these both cool and creepy.

See the big picture.

Medallion: Circle LED Animation

This project uses the Simple LED Animation Kit (SLAK post or page) with the LEDs arranged in a circle around the PIC16F628A. I decided to do this project after picking up some red SMD LEDs at HSC in Santa Clara, CA, last week. Although the only difference from the basic SLAK is the board design, I find that this layout to be have the potential to be more useful. It could easily be a medallion on a necklace. If I had blue LEDs this would go well in an IronMan Reactor Core package.

This board only needs 4.5V and in the video is running on only 3 AA batteries. You can see that the PIC is still in a socket.

If anyone is interested, I can easily change the SMD parts to thru-hole parts and post an updated board.

I am still refining the current set of animations for both a linear (straight line) arrangement and a circular arrange. I need to tailor the ones running on this board for a circle only. OK, so that sounds a little cryptic. What I really mean is that I want to take out the ones that don't look good to me. And maybe add some more. By the way, each animation has a name.

One of the next things on my list is to take this same arrangement and use three different LED colors, four red, four green, and four blue or maybe yellow. Then I will spend some time creating animations that highlight the color possibilities.

Downloads are available on the web page

Axe Rouge

What could that possibly mean?!?

We saw this sign while driving in the old hill top town in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, last year. I still don't know what it means. The translation is simply "Red X".

You can imagine the problem. You are driving around in another country and see an important looking sign. It must be important, why would it be there? But what does it mean? I took a picture and drove on. Fortunately I did not drive off the edge of anything or go the wrong way, well, at least as far as I know.

Simple LED Animation Kit (SLAK 0.5)

The simple LED animation kit is designed to control up to twelve individual LEDs or groups of LEDs with a series of different animations using a PIC16F628A. The goal is to provide flexibility in selecting LEDs and creating a lighting arrangement.

The features are

• Control of 1 to 12 LEDs
• Repeating animations sequences
• LEDs can be individual LEDs or groups of LEDs
• Transitions can be immediate (no transition), gradual, or have a history (aka 'NightRider')
• Wiring can be common anode or common cathode
• LEDs with a voltage drop greater than 5v are supported
• Schematics for wall-wart designs and for battery designs
• Schematics for all-in-one designs (LEDs on the PCB) or LED off-board designs
• Many pre-programmed animations designed for different configurations (circle of LEDs, line of LEDs, bi-color LEDs)

The video shows five different configurations:

• a 3x3 grid ("Domicile"),
• a straight line of twelve (two are shown: one is done in red, the other in green)
• a circle of twelve, 
• three sets of six bi-color LEDs arranged in a triangle ("NewDimension"),
• a multi-segment front panel LED from an STB (two are shown: one is green and the other is blue) ("Roundabout")

Each of these use a different set of animations, where each animation is created or tailored to the count, color, and arrangement of the LEDs. Also, all of these different projects are described later on this page, with pictures of the front and back of most of the boards.

Code, schematics, and PCB designs are provided on the web page: SLAK page.