So I once again trawled the internet for tips on how to control multiple LED's with just a few I/O-pins and ended up deciding on the " CD4017 decade counter" after reading this neat tutorial. However even using the Mega, there still weren't enough I/O-pins to accomodate for all of the LED's, buttons, piezo buzzers and potentiometers. Since my sketch contained a lot of LED's (42 including the lit buttons), it was clear that I needed to go for an Arduino Mega. With my sketch in hand, I could start figuring out how many LED's, buttons and other stuff I needed. A " Tl dr" section for the more impatient reader, where I get to the point a bit quicker, and present a recipe to follow (revised by learning from my mistakes).Įnjoy the ride and please feel free to ask questions!.A "Long Read" section for the patient reader, where I describe my process, thoughts and (likely) mistakes in detail.Most steps in this tutorial therefore will each have two sections: However, the build process was a great and fun (and only sometimes frustrating) learning experience with tons of trial and error and things that I would do differently, were I to build it again. The project ended up taking close to three months of sparetime hours, and I only finished the last bit of coding the day before my nephew's birthday! turned out the breeze became more of a, well if not a storm, then at least a gale! It was somewhat more difficult than first expected. Now that I had an overall idea of what the spaceship control panel should look like, and having decided to make it relatively simple, I was certain that actually building it would be a breeze.! In the meantime, use the code as the basis for the I/O pin setup (not the schematic). I will try to make an updated version of the schematic as soon as I have time. If you want to make your own version, I'd highly recommend using something like WS2812B (or similar) LEDs, as it will make controlling the LEDs a lot easier (for example using the FastLED library).Īnother fellow Instructable member has also discovered some discrepancies between the schematic and the code (with certain I/O pins in the code not corresponding to the shown schematic). for those that want to venture into the journey of building this: Using the 4017 decade counters is an unnecessarily complicated way to control the LEDs. With the initial design in place (well - sketched out rather quickly on a piece of paper at least) I was ready to move on to actually figuring what it would take to build this - how many and which parts I would need, which Arduino controller to use etc. So I started sketching down a few ideas for the control panel until I reached a look that I was happy with. Bob Lander's beautiful little control panel toy, was also an inspiration, but I wanted to build something with a bit more interactivity. Jeff High Smith's amazing spaceship toy and Duncan Jauncey's remix of it were great inspirations, but were a bit too big a mouthful for me since I was lacking: a) Enough experience to build it, b) Enough time to gain the experience and c) I wanted the project to be controlled only by an Arduino to make it simpler (and cheaper) than having to interface with e.g. So I trawled the internet for tutorials on simple Arduino toy tutorials to get inspired by, but I couldn't quite find exactly what I was looking for. Since he loves anything space-related (especially if it contains buttons and lights) I came up with the initial idea of making him a simple Arduino-based toy with some LED's, buttons, a speaker, sliders etc. Since my nephew's 6-years birthday was coming up in a few months I decided that I wanted to make him a present. However I had no experience with a lasercutter, nor with any sort of intermediate Arduino programming or components besides the standard LED or simple sensor. I had a tiny bit of Arduino experience and a had taken a Fusion-course here on Instructables. A few months ago I decided to become a member of the local maker space, since I've been wanting to learn the tools of the maker trade for ages.
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