Beacon3

From Hackstrich
Revision as of 01:35, 21 July 2011 by SarahEmm (talk | contribs) (Lots of updates to reflect the last few hours of in-head design.)

Beacon3 will be a beacon for the top of our flag(less) pole for Burning Man 2011. It will be simpler than Beacon2 as time is limited to get it done, but we want a brighter beacon.

Ideas

  • Beacon Unit
    • Same enclosure as Beacon2 can be used to save time, just remove PCBs and replace with these
    • Planar PCB that fits onto the spindle, which the other boards plug into vertically
      • Single MCU this time, as there are fewer LEDs
      • Same light sensor and (lack of) charging circuitry as Beacon2 can also be used
      • Regulator on planar will only be needed for wireless functionality, MCU can operate over whole battery range as can LED drivers
      • An ATmega328p might work if the pin count required is low enough, would make programming for it easy!
    • 4 RGBW LED units on Star boards and heat sinks at 12, 3, 6, and 9
      • Current thought is Cree MC-E ~2.5W per component colour RGBW LEDs
    • 4 RGBW LED driver boards (custom) at 1:30, 4:30, 7:30, and 10:30
      • 4x NXP SSL3520A chips on each board looks good to drive the RGBW LEDs (500mA per component colour)
        • This chip has a fixed I2C address though so an I2C mux would be needed on each LED board, plus one on the planar
          • The PCA9545 looks perfect for this, I2C controlled 4:1 I2C mux
  • Remote Control Unit
    • Having a remote that would make the beacon extra-noticeable when a button was pressed would be cool
    • To get long enough range to be useful, we'd want ~50mW
    • XBee is probably the best way to go, but need to look at power draw for the RX side and would have to custom-design a remote control unit
    • Remote Control Unit could just be:
      • Arduino Fio
      • XBee Series 1 RP-SMA (plugs directly into Arduino Fio)
      • Rubber-duck antenna
      • LiIon pack (plugs directly into Arduino Fio)

Project Status

2011-07-19: Initial design started.