Has anyone ever bought or seen APA102 LED Rings? I found 1 place that sells a ring with 24 LEDs on it but the price is a bit rich for me. $20 + shipping
Sparkfun sells some 1/4 rings but with a full set of 4 the ring will be too small for what I need and the price on them is even higher. $16 for a small ring of 12 LEDs.
I bought this earlier in the year. I planned to break it up and make a few snowmen or a decoration but ran out of time. For $25 it comes prewired, I’d probably buy again.
CHINLY 93 Leds 6 ring WS2812B WS2812 5050 RGB LED Ring Lamp Light Individually Addressable Full Dream Color DC5V https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07437X7SL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apap_NphErIqKl4AsQ
They’re not that hard to make @Brian_Lewis . If you’d like, get me some measurements of what you want and I’ll draw up the PCB design. Size and quantity will determine manufacturing cost.
I had some made, but I’ve run out and the manufacturer doesn’t want to make any more. They were 80mm diameter with 33 LEDs and the circuit board was only 5.5mm wide. I think they struggled with the width of the board.
I will probably get some more made, but with a slightly wider board, 6 or 6.5mm.
@Ashley_M_Kirchner_No I need them to have an inner diameter of 80mm. Width of the ring PCB itself isn’t too big of a deal since this will be mounted on something. The number of LEDs on the ring is also not too important so long as they are evenly spaced but I’m sure that is a given.
The plan is to mount 2 of these next to each other top to bottom to make a figure 8.
The guy I’m working with would like the bottom ring to be smaller so if you could draw up a ring with an inner diameter of 70mm that would be great.
Manufacturing costs will obviously be the determining factor in whether or not we will use different sizes or not.
I forgot, I have got a couple left.
You mentioned that they are 80mm, is that inner diameter? They need to fit
around an old 3BP1 CRT tube which is why the inner diameter is important
for me.
Are you interested in selling them?
@Brian_Lewis , Do you want them as a single piece, or half/quarter pieces to put together? A single piece would be a lot of wasted material on the manufacturing side but better on your end of course. And if you can purchase them from Jeremy that’s obviously better since he’s already got them. Otherwise I’m happy to create the PCB design files.
@Ashley_M_Kirchner_No A single piece is preferable but half pieces wouldn’t be bad. I could see myself using half pieces for some other projects.
@Brian_Lewis , they are 80mm outside diameter, about 70mm internal. The last ones I have left are for a project that I’m in the middle of. I will be getting some more made next year when I find a manufacturer… And in more sizes and probably WS2813s versions too
@Ashley_M_Kirchner_No Looks like Jeremy is saving his last few for another project. If you wouldn’t mind helping me out with a PCB design I’d appreciate it.
@Brian_Lewis , can do. I’ll start drawing tonight or tomorrow. Send me a hangouts request if you don’t mind so I can get in touch with you with questions.
Aliexpress has these for cheaper prices than I have found anywhere… down side is that it sometimes takes 6+weeks to get them
@Justin_Eastman Do you have any links? I’ve been unsuccessful with finding the rings with apa102 LEDs. Ray Wu had 1 for a while but Everytime I ordered it he said it wasn’t available and now it shows the item as unavailable.
@Brian_Lewis The ones I am buying are WS2812. Do you need APA102 specifically? I think the only difference is the refresh rate and unless you are doing POV WS2812 should be good…
Unfortunately yes, I need the apa’s due to interrupt issues with a ping sensor.
I get that… Is the interrupt completely necessary? Are you just trying to detect user interaction or is this distance calculation necessary for the safety of the project? Could you just read the sensor between led shows to get the distance? I would think the processor should be fast enough. What I do alot in these cases is just check my sensors in my own show() function before actually calling the fastled.show() function.
@Justin_Eastman Bear with me, this reply is going to be long. The ping sensor is checking whether or not someone or something gets within 2 feet of the project. At that point it triggers a relay which is controlling a heater circuit for a 3BP1 CRT tube which heats up the electron guns in the tube and displays a clock. There are anywhere between 6 and 10 LEDs in each of the clocks that we have built so far. The LEDs aren’t doing anything super fancy. Just a few sine waves to create a breathing effect and change colors. The original project that I first attempted to use the WS2812 LEDs with also included an FM radio breakout board which introduced a host of other issues. This was all being run by a Teensy 3.2 and while the LEDs mostly worked, the ping sensor would sometimes get tripped up and cause undesirable effects with the LEDs or distance sensing and trigger the heater circuit and I eventually settled with 2 micro controllers to control everything. The next two projects that have been built ditched the Teensy for a nano pro, the FM breakout board and the WS2812 LEDs for APA102’s. There were no issues whatsoever with this configuration. With the success of the past two builds I’d like to stick with APA’s but the client is requesting rings to make a figure 8 type effect around the face of the CRT tube. Hence why I’m asking for rings specifically with APA’s.
@Brian_Lewis hmmmm interesting… were the interrupts disabled on the WS2812 project? I get not having to reinvent the wheel… just trying to offer an option since those rings are proving difficult to obtain. In my experience, interrupts can often be avoided when they are not critical to their running (ie: IR sensors, etc). Especially with only a few LEDs, that time where you are unable to check the sensor is really small and typically enough… I did something similar using two arduino pro micros (<$4) where one did communication over RS485 and the other controlled the lights. Certainly easier an cleaner with just one microcontroller though.
