New Light Controller (Update)

Here is the basic block diagram for the Lighting Controller.  Looks like a lot of LEDs, but to recap what is driving this.  My first battle fort had three blasters, two with 2 barrels and 1 with 4 barrels.  Then it had two power generator LEDs, one with 2 LEDs.  Finally there were two other flashing LEDs on the MOC.  That totals to 13 LEDs and ideally 6 independent controllers  I would have put in more lights, but the Brick Buddy only went had 4 independent controllers and only one had a PWM controller on it.  This is what is driving this design.

Decided to use a pair of TI LED controllers in addition to the two inherent PWM controllers inside the PIC.  The LP5569 allows for three LEDs per controller, which is 9 actual LEDs.  The IC will sink up to 25mA per  pin, so that up to two LEDs could be attached per pin with a load sharing resistor of 10 to 20 ohms.  Thus this design has up to 8 independent LED controllers.  In addition (and not shown) is two ON-OFF type signals that can sink >100mA each.

Connectors are always problematic in this type of design.  One goal is to make it small, but with all of the LED connections, this becomes difficult.  So for the 18 LEDs on the two LP5569s, I have decide to go with three standard 2x5 10 pin connectors.  These are the standard PC serial connectors and allow for use of off the shelf connectors and ribbon cables.  Still requires either soldering or twisting/taping wires.  But LEDs in a MOC can be anywhere and including a connector for every LED would take alot of room and be prohibitively expensive.  This way I don't burden the person who only wants a few LEDs with the cost of 18 single connectors.  The other two connectors use the standard 6 pin on the Brick Buddy which allows me to use those cables for other purposes.  One will connect the the sensors and the other will connect the two PIC PWM controllers and ON-OFF LEDs.

There are 4 digital sensor input and one analog sensor input.The digital sensors are all interrupt on change inputs, so the controller should be responsive to input.  The analog input would be used to vary the lighting effects, not sure how, but it is completely a frimware issue. I have some ideas for a companion board that will have a few buttons and a potentiometer on it along with some connectors to mate out to the standard power functions connector.  This will allow for standard input functions to be used.

As mentioned in the previous post, the BLE module will be optional.  I probably will not start work on the Android interface until after Maker Faire is over.  The goal would be to show a working interface at Bricks By The Bay in July.

The PCB layout has begun and right now it looks like it will all fit on 6x8 plate with a 4x8 plate on top.  This will allow for the LED lighting connectors to be exposed.