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Riad has everything you need to make your own Mooninites (Gerber files, schematics and layout). He writes --
By now everyone's heard about the 2007 Boston Mooninite Scare. Unfortunately, as far as I know, no one has put any thought into mass producing more of these guys. Well, no more. Thom, a now-buddy of mine from Chicago, emailed me after he saw my Superbowl party window decoration to tell me that he thought it would be awesome to design a Mooninite PCB that could be built cheaply enough to be used as a throwie...I've got a 3x3.6" Ignignokt board sent off for manufacture just today. Since I needed it rather quickly, I didn't optimize for a one layer design, but I'm sure that people will be willing to do group buys and thus manufacture will be a reasonable option for everyone.
In 100 quantity, the parts come to about $5 plus a power source (batteries, et cetera). From pcbcart.com the board is about $2 in the
same numbers, so as long as people are willing to do group buys these should make very reasonable throwies.The design uses 60 LEDs and a power converter that I designed to be as cheap as humanly possible
Pocket Ignignokt, thanks Thom! - Link.
Related:
Schematics, info and gerbers mirrored.
And then some more free advertising...
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Or you could get a Lite-Brite for about the same price from Toys R Us. Sure this may bring back bad memory's of your childhood and its not really LED, but its darn close.
http://www.hasbro.com/litebrite/default.cfm?page=Products/Detail&product_id=17461
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gimme a break, unregistered guy. the cartoons on adult swim are all basically free through adultswimfix.com, so i'm all about advertising for cool free stuff. besides, whoever actually puts in the effort of doing one of these isn't actually focusing on the advertising aspect of it.
awesome writeup by this thom guy. wish it was an instructable though.
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Wish they would have posted eagle files instead of talking about a Perl file to generate the stuff. I don't want to send off to have a board made for two layer stuff. I'd rather figure out how to make it one layered.
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I think having the eagle files would have been usefull. (Why is Makezine useing PERL?)
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Eagle file would have been great
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It took me 3 times to post the above -- I guess Makezine is using a movable type and is in perl - why?!?!?
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OMG PERL!!!!! EVIL!!!!
Calm down!
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So where can I get in on a group buy on these PCBs?
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Hey all,
I'm Riad, the designer of these boards.
With regard to posting Eagle files: I'll put one up in the not-too-distant future. I thought the more general coordinate-to-script thing would be more useful to people---and I can't see why anyone would object to Perl!
To the person who posted the wish that it were an instructable: drop me an email and let me know what it is you'd like to see added to the page and I'll try and put it up!
-=rsw
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Hey all,
I'm Riad, the designer of these boards.
With regard to posting Eagle files: I'll put one up in the not-too-distant future. I thought the more general coordinate-to-script thing would be more useful to people---and I can't see why anyone would object to Perl!
To the person who posted the wish that it were an instructable: drop me an email and let me know what it is you'd like to see added to the page and I'll try and put it up!
-=rsw
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Sorry about the Perl comment.. Was ranting in my brain - but was typing it..
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samurai1200 -- thanks, but the credit for the writeup also goes to Riad. I can only take credit for periodically sending him excited emails saying HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME and so forth, then sending Phillip Torrone instant messages and emails saying CHECK OUT THE AWESOME!
I think it's great that it happened, though!
Lite-Brite? That's like buying a CRT instead of a flat panel monitor, heh.
Advertising -- There is nothing saying that you have to make one that looks like an ATHF character. That's the really cool part about this. Riad spent a lot of time making and documenting an affordable, generic dc/dc converter circuit that you can use to drive a varying number of LEDs, in whatever color or pattern you want -- the electricity doesn't care. It is a very cool design and I would encourage you to check it out!
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A quick update!
If you've been waiting to homebrew one, I've posted a version of the layout that's optimized for single-sided boards. Enjoy!
-=rsw
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