I am developing a microbic project for my y7 tech class . Its a smart greenhouse.
There will be a moisture sensor which will activate a micro pump when too dry.
There will be a servo motor which will open the greenhouse roof when the temperature is above 28degree.
Finally there will be an RGB strip which I will set to violet for a specific time.
So I need a breakout board which can allow easy connection and enough power to drive a micro pump motor , a micro servo and a strip of approx 8 RGB LEDS.
I already have the kitronic compact robotics board which is great for the pump and the servo . But it can’t very easily drive the RGB’s , plus its expensive and I’ll need to order a lot of these things.
Can you please advise me as to an appropriate solution for this breakout board.
Ive attached an image showing my setup - although its still in early prototype stage. PS remember its for year 7 so I’m not looking for a super duper complex solution.
hi @damian82482 - welcome back to the forums
This sounds like a really cool project for a year 7 student to complete - there’s certainly a few moving parts!
It seems like you’re very comfortable with the wiring and coding side of the project - perhaps I can help out to economise the Bill of Materials and sort out the LEDs
Hi Michael.
With regards to the RGB ’s I just want a strip that I can program with the microbit. I presume they would need a positive , earth and signal connection.
They would need to operate of 5-9 V. I intend to cut the strips into sections containing 8 LED’s. Could you please recommend a product that I could use? There are so many rib lights and its a bit confusing.
The edge connector looks OK but I don’t see how I can connect he servo. Would this mean I would need to solder the servo to the copper pins on the edge connector ? Would the same apply for the RGB lights ?
If you are not averse to a bit of soldering yourself, that edge connector breakout on your board is 0.1" spaced, so any appropriate header can be soldered there so students can swap things around with jumper leads.
If you are after a short LED strip, our GlowBit sticks are a good choice as you can solder headers to them too, rather than have to cut and solder to pads on a flexible strip:
They use the common WS2812Bv5 LED, so drivers shouldn’t be hard to find:
