In this article we look at another electronic kit that can be built, this time it is a Colorful Glittering Five-Pointed Star Flashing LED Kit.
Again its only through hole components apart from the USB connector but that is easy to solder to the board – so it should be easy enough for beginners
This kit comes with a case you can fit it in
Specs
Operating voltage: DC4.5V-5V;
There are minimal components in this kit, leds, resistors and a microcontroller which clearly is programmed to displaysall the patterns. Again, the supplied microcontroller is already programmed and no code supplied – which is not good.
I’d like to see the code, maybe write my own variation and what about if worst comes to the worst and the microcontroller became faulty
It is an STC15F204EA which is an 80C51 base microcontroller from ST Micros
Schematic
P30 and P31 on J20 connector on the schematic appear to be a programming port, so in theory if you could write a program, you could also upload it to make your own flashing LED sequences, you would need a programming cable with RX and TX, there are many options for these based on FTDI, CH340 and CP2102 chips – I don’t recommend this to be honest.
| header | UART adapter |
|---|---|
| P3.1 | RXD |
| P3.0 | TXD |
| GND | GND |
| 5V | 5V |
Parts List
| Component Name | PCB Marker | QTY |
| RGB LED | D1-D50 | 50 |
| 1K Metal Film Resistor | R1-R10 | 10 |
| Self-Locking Switch | SW1 | 1 |
| 28 pin IC Socket | U1 | 1 |
| STC15F204EA microcontroller | U1 | 1 |
| Micro USB connector | P1 | 1 |
Install the 10 1K resistors first, the IC socket, usb connector, switch and 4 pin header – just like the image below
It should be noted that the LEDs are installed on the other side of the board. You need to take care with the polarity of the LEDs and since there are 50 of these it can be time consuming soldering them. So take your time.
I did get a couple of extra ones.
Purchase
Its relatively cheap
| ICSTation | $6.99 |
Summary
A fairly basic kit, which is more of a novelty item.
Again, its not that difficult to assemble but the lack of code for the micro is slightly disappointing, I would give this kit a 6 out of 10, if the code was available for learning then that would maybe go to an 8.