“It was December 2020, deep into the second Covid-Lockdown and I thought about how to give away some smiles for christmas to my family and friends. Besides, I wanted to have some fun with pcb-layout and microcontrollers.
The result: This cute small and relatively simple tree pcb with a Attiny44 and a 4x5 fully customizable led-matrix.
The reviews:
16/29: “This was the best christmas gift this year and you stole the show for everyone else.”
10/29: “No chance you made this yourself only for us!”
02/29: “Can you make it go slower?” (Grandmas)
01/29: “I’ve got a torn open envelope, cool card but which tree are you talking about?” (Thanks Deutsche Post 📯)
A few weeks later I thought, maybe you would have fun with it as well as a present or a small project to learn about pcb-layout and µCs, so I made some changes to improve the design, came up with a new and not christmas-limited version and here we are. Have fun! 🎈
Supplies:
Material:
The PCB, self made or ordered
All electronic components from the BOM (here on findchips)
3D-printed stand
CR2032 battery
Programmer (see Step 5)
Tools must have
Tweezer
Soldering Iron or Reflow Oven or alternative (see Step 4)
Solder (-paste)
Tape
Tools nice to have
Multimeter
PCB holder / third hand
Others
A steady hand”