Make A Programmable LED Pumpkin Instructions

Make A Programmable LED Pumpkin Instructions

Pumpkin3

For this project, I modified the idea out of Craft: magazine and so I’ve include the article from that magazine as a downloadable pdf to print out and guide you on this project. I made a few changes. I used regular LEDs instead of the teeny tiny surface mount ones. I used Lexan/ Polycarbonate for the structure, which I ended up cutting into strips. Finally, I used sanded down magnet wire to connect up the LEDs because that’s what I had around, regular wire would work fine too if you strip it.

If you wanted to make this project a bit easier, you could just wire up LEDs into a pattern that wouldn’t change or be programmable. Go get yourself a pumpkin and get to it. Make sure to post the results to the Halloween contest and to the Make flickr pool.

12 thoughts on “Make A Programmable LED Pumpkin Instructions

  1. Oracle1729 says:

    Am I missing something or where are the instructions?

    Anyway this looks good, but putting the electronics in a gooey pumpkin seems so messy. An option is a plastic pumpkin and then you can use it again next year without cleaning off old pumpkin guts.

    ISTR foam carvable pumpkins at the store last year that looked pretty good.

  2. ladyada says:

    i think the pattern was slow because you forgot to burn the fuses when you progammed the microcontroller. its one of the tabs in the AVRStudio software when you program it. uncheck the button that says “Divide clock by 8” and it will run 8 times faster :)

  3. Bre says:

    The instructions are in the pdf that you click on above.

    Thanks Ladyada, I’ll go check that out! You rock!

  4. abbtech says:

    That is sure an ambitious pumpkin project! Nice Job.

  5. MCUman says:

    This is a cool project and looks like it can be rolled into other applications and toys. BUT WHERE’S THE INSTRUCTIONS??? I tried downloading the PDF, but after an hour I gave up. Can someone email it to me? mcuman@frontiernet.net

  6. MCUman says:

    This is a cool project and looks like it can be rolled into other applications and toys. BUT WHERE’S THE INSTRUCTIONS??? I tried downloading the PDF, but after an hour I gave up. Can someone email it to me? mcuman@frontiernet.net

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