Beacon3-OriginalPlans

Beacon3 will be a more ambitious version of the Beacon2 project, targeted for use at Burning Man 2011.

Project Status

Putting together rough ideas, real work won't start until after Burning Man 2010 is over and we find out what worked well with Beacon2.

LEDs up the whole flag pole, not just a beacon at the top like Beacon2 is.
- Maybe do the guy lines too?
Modular design like Beacon2 will keep costs down and make assembly and programming easier.
- Master board will be a controller only, will have no local LEDs
Two half-circle boards at each level will increase yield, make assembly easier, and keep the board size within Eagle's limits
- Maybe use 0.1" pitch rectangular connectors with locking arms to join the halves?
  - Like Digikey's OR1001-ND (would be about $1.50 per board in connectors, not too bad)
I2C probably makes the most sense for inter-board communications
- Means basically any CPUs can be used on master/slave boards
Local regulators on each slave board will give more flexibility in lighting and less worries about how many LEDs can be on at once
- Using switching regulators will greatly improve efficiency (and therefore runtime)
Transistors on each LED so that we don't have limits on how many LEDs per CPU
- Alternatively could use a proper LED driver chip
  - Have a local ATwhatever to do supervisory functions on each board, and the LED driver to actually PWM the LEDs and such
  - I2C for inter-board comms and SPI for intra-board comms would work (as long as the ATwhatever has both at the same time supported)
Raw power supply will be completely separate, charging will be done as a separate board/project if required
PWM for all LEDs