Providing GBZ LED Status by using Fiber Optics

[Popcorn]

For this project, I stole my wife's hot glue gun. It's a nice one because it's a low-temp hot glue gun. The gun and the glue are made to operate at lower temps. Might be a solution.

Also, if the optic fibers don't work, I was really fascinated by an idea of wermy's to use the teensy to control leds. I remember reading a post with his idea, but I don't recall where.

Maybe he'll chime in? @wermy

Yep, I had thought about taking the LED solder points on the powerboost, and wiring those up to some inputs on the Teensy. Then, you could use a few analog outputs on the teensy and control an RGB LED (similar to this one: http://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Kin ... aQod5r0Bmg ). The Teensy could read the PowerBoost LED states and change colors on the RGB LED depending on what combination of LEDs are lit (i.e low power but charging, fully charged, etc.). My only concern was whether or not wiring up the PowerBoost LEDs directly to some inputs on the Teensy would be too much for it to handle (which might be as simple as adding some resistors), I haven't had time to play with that yet. I think the idea should work though!

I was reading up on this quite extensively when I was researching if I could use the Teensy LC to read the battery level to give us a battery meter. The analog and digital inputs on the teensy lc are rated at a maximum input of 3.3V so the LED wouldn't work directly since they are 5V. But yep, you could of course just use resistors to bring the load to a safer range. The Teensy 3.1 can handle up to 5V though.

[wermy]

I was reading up on this quite extensively when I was researching if I could use the Teensy LC to read the battery level to give us a battery meter. The analog and digital inputs on the teensy lc are rated at a maximum input of 3.3V so the LED wouldn't work directly since they are 5V. But yep, you could of course just use resistors to bring the load to a safer range. The Teensy 3.1 can handle up to 5V though.

Good to know, thanks! If I have some time this weekend I'll see if I can get something going.

[Quatrerwin]

I got about 2.5 V as the max voltage on the LEDs when I tested them along with about 5 mA current. I think the teensy lc can handle them as inputs without modification. The RGB LEDs I found need 2.5-3 V and 20 mA to work. From what I could find, the outputs on the teensy lc are all 5 mA except four can do 20 mA. The teensy 3.1/3.2 have outputs that do 10 mA only. I couldn't find what the max input current was on any of the teensy boards. The one thing to note is this is their digital I/O specs. I'm not sure if their PWM specs are any different (since they use the same pins).

When I looked up the specs for the LEDs on the Powerboost 1000C, someone from Adafruit said he thought they were 2.5 V, which is what I found on my own with a multimeter as well, and each LED is in series with a 1k resistor.

Adafruit topic
Teensy LC specs
Teensy 3.1/3.2 specs
RGB LED tutorial for Teensy

[BibbitZ]

Was there ever an update of the finished product? Thinking about going the fiber route for mine as well.

[Popcorn]

After discovering how hot the Powerboost gets, I realized that its a bad idea to put hot glue on it on the LEDs so I abandoned this idea.

[jakejm79]

I just did a similar thing:
My 1000C is mounted to the back side of the lower portion of the cartridge slot, the 3 LEDs (Blue, Yellow, Green) are a few mm from the bottom back lip of the cartridge opening.
I took a blank cartridge case and cut the bottom off it (so it now just slides about 2mm into the slot) I then drilled some 1/8" holes in the top and ran some fiber optic cable out of an old TOSLINK cable (the glass rod and inner most protective layer are a little over 1/8", I stripped the other two protective layers off) I then just glued them vertically in the cartridge so they went from the holes in the top down the bottom and would line up with the LEDs on the 1000C when the cartridge was inserted.

No problem with the TOSLINK cable insides melting with hot glue and since the cable isn't actually attached to the 1000C (the ends just sit near the LEDs) no worry about heat from the 1000C.

[pyterv]

I just have found this https://learn.adafruit.com/glowing-beeh ... light-pipe
its similar to the method of popcorn