The last time I worked on my spinner project was in October when I finally got my first working version. I then made big plans for the next version:

• Switch to an ATmega32u4 so I could switch to using USB to program it instead of serial.
• Add a DC-DC converter so I can be more flexible with my power options, like using a single 1.5V battery to power this. I also wanted to do this just to practice with making a DC-DC converter.
• Add the option to power it with a LiPo battery and include a LiPo charging circuit, mainly to practice and learn how to do this.
• Switch to using a constant current LED driver to simplify the circuit and layout and be able to support more LEDs.
• Use a professional board printing service to get experience with that and because it makes my board layout easier and should greatly reduce the number of manufacturing errors I have to test for and deal with.
• Fix all the problems I found in my previous version.

After 3 months of putting it off, I realized part of my problem in getting started was that I was trying to do too much. (To be fair, another large part of the problem was the holidays of course.) So, I cut my list back to just three things:

• Switch to the constant current LED driver (TLC59282) to get more LEDs (thus the name of the project–SpinnerHD)
• Use a professional board printing service (OSH Park)
• Fix all the problems I found in my previous version

Since it’s been 3 months, I had to remember some of the decisions I made (my previous board had some post build modifications that weren’t reflected in the schematic). But, after a couple of hours, I managed to finish the schematic for my new project:

First version of the schematic for SpinnerHD

Okay, I realize it’s pretty ugly. If you have any suggestions on a better way to do things, please let me know!

BTW: I wish KiCad had a PDF export for the schematics because I don’t have a PDF export printer installed on this computer yet, so the png version will have to do. Or, you can download an archive of the current state of the project here: SpinnerHD-Take1 I don’t know if that includes everything you need for the project or not. One of the other reasons the schematic took so long is because it was created on another computer and I had problems getting all the libraries and modules over to this one. I didn’t notice the archive option until I wrote this post, so I hope it works.