Hey there forum!
I've been working for a couple years on a new ESP based WS281x controller board. I'm on the 3rd-ish revision, and feel like it's ready to get a few boards out into the community and get feedback. When I started this project, the goal was to have a complete sub-$100 controller that can run 10 strands. Currently well under that goal. My display is based around the 12v WS2811 and WS2813, so that's what the controller is geared towards.
The hardware itself is intended to be a low-cost, maker/hobby type board. There are 11 outputs. Built-in 10/100 ethernet (LAN8720) and the ESP's WiFi. The nice thing about the 8720 is it utilizes the ESP's onboard MAC, so all of the async stuff still works. It supports on-board display and input, also configurable/manageable via a web portal. There are a couple of extra low-speed low-current GPIO available for, well, general purposes.
The software is loosely based around the ESPixelStick Firmware but has been modified to work with fastLED library (amongst others). It will be open-sourced once it's beta-level.
The brains of the device is either an ESP32 Dev Module or an ESP32-wroom (or pin-compatible) module.
As I mentioned above, I'd love to get a few of them out there and get some feedback. Let me know if you're interested!
Attached is a KiCAD render.
I've been working for a couple years on a new ESP based WS281x controller board. I'm on the 3rd-ish revision, and feel like it's ready to get a few boards out into the community and get feedback. When I started this project, the goal was to have a complete sub-$100 controller that can run 10 strands. Currently well under that goal. My display is based around the 12v WS2811 and WS2813, so that's what the controller is geared towards.
The hardware itself is intended to be a low-cost, maker/hobby type board. There are 11 outputs. Built-in 10/100 ethernet (LAN8720) and the ESP's WiFi. The nice thing about the 8720 is it utilizes the ESP's onboard MAC, so all of the async stuff still works. It supports on-board display and input, also configurable/manageable via a web portal. There are a couple of extra low-speed low-current GPIO available for, well, general purposes.
The software is loosely based around the ESPixelStick Firmware but has been modified to work with fastLED library (amongst others). It will be open-sourced once it's beta-level.
The brains of the device is either an ESP32 Dev Module or an ESP32-wroom (or pin-compatible) module.
As I mentioned above, I'd love to get a few of them out there and get some feedback. Let me know if you're interested!
Attached is a KiCAD render.
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