This is a programmable sound reactive board with 12 full-color Neopixel LEDs, specially designed to be used as a wearable device or a gadget for other audio systems.
Electret condenser microphone converts sound into an electrical signal, which is then amplified by an op-amp. MCU reads this signal and generates a light pattern on Neopixel LEDs.
The round plate has 45x45mm with a thickness of 1mm (5mm assembled), making the final assembled board weights only 5 grams, small enough to be incorporated into portable devices or wearables.
DetailsYou can see how it works in this video
MCU
Main microcontroller is a mainstream STM32f070 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0, operating at 48MHz, with 32Kb of FLASH memory and 6Kb of RAM.
The embedded firmware uses three different peripherals from the micro:
- 12bit ADC to read the sound signal in continuous mode.
- TIMER configured to work at 800KHz to send PWM signal to the LEDs with the NRZ protocol.
- DMA, used for the ADC acquisition and to send data to the timer channel as a PWM signal, so the CPU is unloaded as much as possible during all the process.
Sound acquisition
it uses an omnidirectional electret microphone of 6x2, 7mm with -50dB sensitivity working at frequencies from 100Hz to 10KHz. Signal is amplified with an op-amp that features rail-to-rail input and output, with a 6MHz gain-bandwidth that can be adjusted with an SMD variable resistor.
LEDs
The LEDs are WS2812 chips in a 5050 package, and I use two different versions according to the needs of each project:
- WS2812B for a max brightness results, with an overall consumption of 380mA.
- WS2812C for a much long run on battery powered devices. Brightness is reduced to one-third of the B version, making overall consumption reduced to 180mA.
User Button
Button allows you to switch between different light patterns:
Sound pressure Gauge
Half ring mirrored
Half ring with rotation
With a hold-press, you can adjust the max brightness. Visit the github project page for more info.
Voltage ratings
There is a LDO voltage regulator to adjust input voltage to the 3.3V required by MCU. It accepts a max input voltage of 5.5V, but it must be down to a range of 3-4V for proper communication with LEDs, so a LiPo one-cell (1S) is a good option.
A Schottky diode protects the system from reverse polarity.
Connectors
The board exposes I2C pins to acquire data from external sensors, SWD pins for MCU programming / debugging, Audio OUT pin to access the op-amp output, and WS OUT pin to attach more LEDs to the system.
Code repository
Files12bit_Neo-Ring_BOM_v1.1.xlsx: Bill of Materials
MAT_12Bit_Neo-Ring_schematic.pdf: Board schematic
Comments