Big Fucking "Covid" Badge

Boards arrived on the 4th. My buddy is driving them to Vegas on the 5th.

And we spend the evening finishing up the boards (not all the components were available to AllPCB to assembly for us so we had to do some soldering). Also has to remove the boards from their "frames". Kept one in the frame, #20 of 20, in case someone wanted it.

Everything went pretty well, EXCEPT...

Somehow ended up with red LEDs instead of white, which looks more sinister, but harder to read and not as bright for the same amount of current (had to bump up the constant current setting in the code, meaning shorter battery life :<  ). Bummer. But at least they work.

Instructions for how to use/play with the badge coming next.

Well. Code is done. Ugly, poorly organized, and rushed as usual.

Here's a link to the repo that has pretty much everything:

https://github.com/Hexum064/Big-Fucking-Covid-Badge

It has to have a Nyan Cat mode.

The initial run of the board came back. Looks fantastic.

Had no luck finding any help placing the 1050 components, and having it done by a pick-and-place company was going to cost a ton and take way to long. So 4 hours and a sore back later and all parts were placed.

The good news: everything worked! When does it ever go right the first time !?!?

So the actual boards, and the assembly are under way (with ALLPCB this time). They gave me the best turn-around time and price and most complete BoM fulfillment.

Fingers crossed I get the board back in time now.

Here it is running some prelim game-of-life code.

Well FUCK that was a close one.

I was originally using the xmega32e5. Then I remembered the chip shortage.

Sure enough, almost impossible to find (real ones anyway). Same with the SVR I was planning to use.

Got lucky and had a bunch of attiny814s on had (and of course they are not out of stock anywhere), and it was easy enough to switch the code over. Also found another switching regulator that fit the bill and was simple enough not to need a prototype of the circuit.