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General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

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Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#101

Post by makerdiety »

thanatos519 wrote: post #77
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for the EU to ban these fucking things already. That and disposable power banks. Yes, you read that right. Selling consumer devices with Li-Ion batteries that are designed to not be rechargeable, should be banned altogether.

Indeed these things are an abomination. I regularly find half consumed vapes at intersections where they have clearly been accidentally dropped and abandoned by cyclists. I have a nice collection of perfectly good lithium batteries.

> I regularly find half consumed vapes at intersections where they have clearly been accidentally dropped and abandoned by cyclists. I have a nice collection of perfectly good lithium batteries.

If true, then the hedonism and pleasure seeking (the homeostatic pleasure trap is a monkey trap) found within the big, global industrial complex is meant for a small set of secret hackers to take advantage of by collecting disposed "vape" or smoking pleasure devices for powering some cool nerd contraptions.

Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty when you pick up trash. Because capitalism produces treasure when it excretes its waste products.

You just have to be outside the capitalist world-system to do this cool trick.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#102

Post by doubloon »

exmadscientist wrote: post #57

> Is it possible to improve on this candle-LED implementation? It seems so, but this may be for another project. Hey, I got paid to do this a few years back! Here's the result: https://evietealight.com/ They're the sort of thing it's not really possible to show off in a photo or even video. What really gets you (or at least gets me) is seeing these things out of the corner of your eye, flickering, just like flames fl…

i went to a 'candle light concert' where they had a little asterisk at the bottom pointing out the candles were "flameless", they probably had several hundred LED candles lined up on each edge of the room as the main light source. it was pretty cool and im guessing they used those patents?

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#103

Post by doubloon »

mschuster91 wrote: post #56
quatrefoil wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're OK with disposable alkaline batteries, so what makes lithium worse? If anything, alkaline batteries might have a slightly worse environmental footprint due to the use of manganese. The problem with lithium batteries is that they can catch on fire, but that's a problem only when charged (or charging). A fully discharged battery shouldn't do much.

> We're OK with disposable alkaline batteries, so what makes lithium worse? No we're not. Disposable batteries should not be a thing anywhere, especially not in products where they cannot easily be removed by design. Alkaline batteries may not combust when damaged, but their internal juice leaking out is damn corrosive. > A fully discharged battery shouldn't do much. Even that is enough to light trash compactor truck…

should Apple be forced to produce batteries for 2001 clamshell ibooks?

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#104

Post by dgacmu »

graphe wrote: post #30
yau8edq12i wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst offenders right now might be disposable vapes. I saw some sold with effing lcd screens built-in. For a disposable piece of crap.

I've collected a few of them and they are robust and rechargable batteries. A common battery is IP17350 1100mAh 4.07Wh (Date of manufacture the one I see on the one I'm holding is 20210613). Anyone got any idea to use them besides small flashlights? They also have a pressure sensor on the LED and a nice metal case pretty often.

Depending on the battery there are cheap AliExpress boards - or diy - to make tiny UPSes for a raspberry pi or other usb-powered device. I don't know for that specific battery; I have some that take 18650s, though.

One 18650 can get you several hours of runtime for a pi zero. The battery can cost more than the zero. The cheaper one cell UPS boards are about $2 (plus shipping).

An advantage of single cell UPSes is that you don't have to worry about balancing, which is a bit of a pain with scavenged cells.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#105

Post by fragmede »

graphe wrote: post #30
yau8edq12i wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst offenders right now might be disposable vapes. I saw some sold with effing lcd screens built-in. For a disposable piece of crap.

I've collected a few of them and they are robust and rechargable batteries. A common battery is IP17350 1100mAh 4.07Wh (Date of manufacture the one I see on the one I'm holding is 20210613). Anyone got any idea to use them besides small flashlights? They also have a pressure sensor on the LED and a nice metal case pretty often.

I turn them in to my local battery recycler for further processing.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#106

Post by fragmede »

userbinator wrote: post #80
jdietrich wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. "Disposable" vapes use commodity li-ion cells, of the same basic type that you'd find in a cellphone, a laptop or an EV. They probably aren't the best quality, but there's nothing unusual about the chemistry or packaging. Li-ion cells are the preferred chemistry because of the very high discharge rate - alkaline or primary lithium cells just can't deliver enough current. The cell is perfectly capable of bei…

some people prefer the convenience of a disposable device I don't understand this. Instead of plugging it into a charger, they'd rather go to the store to buy another, or more likely order online and wait for it to be delivered?

it's the convenience. If they had the executive function to get them online, they would save money and get a reusable device instead.

Re: General purpose MCUs built in to LEDs emulate candle flicker

#110

Post by rjmorris »

NikkiA wrote: post #45
graphe wrote: post #32

If you'd like to see this and more in software for flashlights please visit toykeeper's projects! https://github.com/ToyKeeper/anduril https://toykeeper.net/ I loved this feature on my flashlight and used it exclusively on candle mode. There's a lot of thought that goes into it like PWM speed or direct drive for LEDs that may or may not cause flickering and a tradeoff between battery life and the electronics availabl…

I'd rather they didn't, I recently upgraded our household flashlights and was pleased to be able to get 3-mode rather than the ridiculous 5 and 7 mode that they were replacing, no more having to loop through 'SOS' and several ridiculous flash patterns, a half-dozen brightness settings and so on to get to the 'full brightness, no flashing' setting that was needed 100% of the time.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but Anduril doesn't include strobe modes on the main cycle, and it lets you configure how many brightness steps you want (or hold for continuous ramping). So it sounds to me like you should want people to check out Anduril, since it addresses the two issues you mentioned with your old flashlights.
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