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2 layers1pin bargraph, the printed circuit board in 3D

1pin bargraph

mage0r/WS2811_bar

LED bar graph designed around the ws2811 chip

Full screenGitHub.kicad_pcb
Copper layers
2
Thickness
1.6 mm
Parts
16
Nets
28
Pads
94
Tracks, vias
191, 0
Routed
Yes
KiCad
KiCad 3
Created
10 Jan 2014
Updated
25 Feb 2014

Overview

1pin bargraph is an open-source printed circuit board by mage0r, from the mage0r/WS2811_bar repository on GitHub. It is a 2-layer board with 16 parts on 28 nets, routed with 191 tracks and 0 vias.

It is built around the WS2811. Its parts include 5 capacitors, 5 resistors and 5 ICs.

Main components

1

README

README.md

WS2811_bar

This project drives a LED bar graph using a single pin from your microcontroller.

It is designed around using the popular WS2811 LED driver chip commonly used in the adafruit neopixels. This also means several bar graphs can be chained together or the bar graph can follow a sequence of WS2811 or WS2812 LED's.

There has three sections, a kicad circuit diagram, an arduino sketch using the neopixel library from adafruit and lastly a few photos of it in action.

Of course, this is a hacky way to use these chips and there are several disadvantages. Chifely, each chip drives 3 seperate LED's, meaning if you want to iterate through them activating each one, you have to iterate not only through the "pixels" but also through the "colours".

Also, as each chip drives 3 LED's and there are 10 LED's all up, there are two channels "spare", these are the last two of the last pixel.

Depending on the WS2811 chip you use, you may end up with a GRB rather than a RGB. Just because there wasn't enough confusion already...

Improvements and changes cheerfully accepted.

WS2811_bar

WS2811_bar

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOKhcFke9yQ)

CREDITS

This board was designed by John Spencer - john.spencer.9000@gmail.com - https://github.com/mage0r

SPECIAL THANKS

To the creators and maintainers of the KiCAD open-source EDA suite. To the HackMelbourne (CCHS, http://hackmelbourne.org) community of Melbourne, Australia. Especially Lachlan Maher, and Bob Powers. To all other open-source developers whose countless hours supported every other aspect of this design. Extra thanks to Bob because I copied his README.md almost verbatim...

DISTRIBUTION

The specific terms of distribution of this project are governed by the license referenced below. Please contact the copyright owner if you wish to modify the board for distribution. Please utilize this design for personal or research projects. Please acknowledge all contributors.

LICENSE

Licensed under the TAPR Open Hardware License (www.tapr.org/OHL). The "license" sub-folder also contains a copy of this license in plain text format.

Copyright John Spencer 2013 john.spencer.9000@gmail.com

Parts

16
QtyValueFootprintReferences
5104SM0805C1, C2, C3, C4, C5
5220SM0805R0, R1, R2, R3, R4
5WS2811so-8U0, U1, U2, U3, U4
1DOT-BAR1515_PIN_BARBAR1

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Questions

What parts does the 1pin bargraph use?

16 parts, built around the WS2811. The full list of its parts is on this page, with links to each part's symbol and footprint where PCBKit's library has them.

Where can I download the 1pin bargraph KiCad files?

From the mage0r/WS2811_bar repository on GitHub, at the commit this page was made from: the board is 1pin_bargraph_15/1pin_bargraph.kicad_pcb. PCBKit opens the board in the browser, with nothing to install.

Can I use the 1pin bargraph design in my own project?

Its repository states no licence, so its author keeps all rights: ask mage0r before reusing the design.