Tiny LED-strip PWM controller

Want to add a little bit of intelligence and comfort to your LED-strip lighting? This little thing might help.

The stock firmware is kept pretty simple, it implements 'fade-in' when power is supplied. You can set the fade-in speed and final brightness with two small potentiometers.

Only about 40% of code-space is used, so there's still room for you to add the features you need - maybe auto power-off after some time,

The device / firmware is quite hackable. If you don't need the potentiometers, you could use the ADC inputs to read light sensors or other stuff. Please let me know if you plan to do this, so I won't populate them when assembling the board. This requires additional wiring / soldering (SMD) on your side.

Specs:

• Size: 31mm x 11mm
• 12V DC input / output voltage
• up to 2.0 A of current in ventilated areas
• PWM controlled brightness, frequency: about 5kHz
• stock firmware: 2 potentiometers set brightness and fade-delay
• Fully reprogrammable Attiny13 microcontroller (1.27mm ISP connector)

Remote control:

• YES. With the latest firmware, the device accepts single-character serial commands at 9600,8,N,1 (terminal program, Arduino board...). Requires soldering a wire to the ISP header pin #3. Send a '+' to increase brightness by 1 unit, send a '-' to decrease.

Possible hacks:

• Add external potentiometers and build a custom lamp
• Add an external light-dependent resistor
• Add external buttons
• ...

The micro-controller comes programmed with the latest firmware.