Hello Team,
I build electric mountain boards and I want to do a bit of a side project using the Glow Bit stick 1X8.
My builds output 50.4 Vols (12S) and I want to have the glow bit act like a battery level indicator. So 50.4V is a full charge and 39V is flat.
I obviously would need a GlowBbit, but I want to know what step-down converter I should be using and what component I can use to code in the Glow Bit display parameters. Is there anything else I would need?
There’s sooo many items in the core store I got lost so I figure I’d just ask the experts.
Cheers
Michael
Hi Michael,
Welcome to the forum 
sorry we missed your post earlier.
There are a few parts that will be needed to make this work but you’ve got a lot of flexibility in your options.
You will need a microcontroller, a voltage divider circuit to measure the battery voltage, and a power supply for the microcontroller and GlowBit.
The microcontroller to drive the GlowBit can be pretty well any microcontroller, those LEDs are so common there is a library in just about every language to run them on any hardware.
I’d recommend the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller because it’s super cheap and we already have a GlowBit python library for it.
Sparkfun has an excellent guide covering how voltage divider circuits work. You will need a voltage divider that scales your expected battery voltage level down to the analog input level your chosen microcontroller can handle. (0 to 3V for the Pico)
https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/voltage-dividers
Your power supply should have a 5V output, GlowBits can run on lower voltages but that just means they will need more current to compensate, so cheaper to go for a 5V regulator to supply the Glowbit and microcontroller.
2 Likes
