I'm happy to present a new member of the growing DIYino family of fully integrated Arduino compatible prop boards:
Stardust V2
New Features:
[USB system board]: one interface to interact with the board, the integrated micro-USB port is used to
1. upload code
2. charge a single Li-Ion or LiPo battery
3. upload sound files to the MP3 player/SPI flash 4. see below :)
[USB charging]: the V2 can be used to charge a single Li-Ion or LiPo battery cell with 250mA according to the standard CCCV charging profile, thanks to the integrated USB charger circuit. The board will come with an on-board micro-USB connector as well as an extrenal, small size micro-USB breakout board to be able to place a port to anywhere in your prop design.
[K3 technology]: the v2 does not need a kill key, with its current consumption of 0.3mA in sleep mode it retains shelf life for a long period of time. With a 3000mAh 18650 battery it discharges the battery in (3000/0.3=10000h=416 days, which equals to over a year!!!
[USB kill key]: the v2 can be wired to enable a so called USB kill key feature, which allows a complete shut-down of the board in case USB is connected
[single battery cell supply]: the V2 runs off a single 3.7V Li-Ion/LiPo battery without the need to boost the voltage. You can use a voltage source up to 5V or a DC-DC booster still if you so choose. Thanks to the powerful 3W audio amp the v2 still retains superb sound quality and volume when running of a single cell.
[breadboard friendly design]: the v2 is fully breadboard friendly
[High Integration]: based on extensive experimenting with various Arduino boards and shields, the Stardust V2 condenses all learning from the Prime V1 and implements many interconnects commonly used in saber and prop builds on board. The high level of integration makes wiring up the Stardust V2 extremely easy.
[eGesture Engine]: stays for easy Gesture recognition, it is a feature of the system code introduced in FX-SaberOS (to be released soon). Stardust based lightsabers do not have to be configured to distinguish clash and swing motions. Thanks to the advanced impact detection of the accelero- and gyro-sensor on-board the Stardust can detect clashes. Period. Not threshold, no config needed. Thanks to the quaternion based swing detection algorithm, the same aplies to swings: no need to tediously experiment with thresholds, swings are determined based on the spatial flow of the movement.
I created a video with a double feature: it shows my very first
Tri-Cree in-hilt LED module based saber, all my previous DIYino sabers being either neopixel or segmented LED types.
The secound featurette is a
full neopixel blaster I recently built for the birthday of my nephew.
Legacy features:
[proven technology]: based on the successful
DIYino Prime v1 design for lightsaber props
[Arduino Compatible board]: configured as Arduino Uno to leverage the additional code space of the Uno bootloader
[Extremely small size]: to fit into any lightsaber and blaster prop (W x L x H = 21mm x 51mm x 5mm or 0.82" x 2" x 0.2"), it is only slightly larger than a simple Nano, but with a whole system integrated around the Nano design.
[Broad blade type support]: supports in-hilt High-Power LED or neopixel style saber builds (i.e. you can build every kind of saber with it bar a segmented LED string, which is the domain of the Primes).