I hope this is OK. I've read all I can here and didn't find an answer. I realize this is way basic. I'm a School District's Cybersecurity Engineer and have been tasked with making tinsy PCBs.

I read tutorials that to get an LED (SMD or THT) to blink, all you have to do is add a jumper to the chip. However, I read something else about buying blinking LED SMDs, but the only ones I've found are on AliExpress.

I've included the KiCAD layout for what I'm talking about. Will this work to flash the LED, or am I way off course? If it will work, then what do I have to do to the jumper to make it happen?

This tiny PCB will be plugged into a larger PCB using headers. The Large PCB runs with +3.3v. I know it works, as it's been tested.

 

If you don’t like purchasing from Aliexpress, DigiKey also has a flashing LED selection. I did not check Mouser, but I am sure I have seen them.
Also, other hobbyist websites like Sparkfun may also carry them.

 

I hope this is OK. I've read all I can here and didn't find an answer. I realize this is way basic. I'm a School District's Cybersecurity Engineer and have been tasked with making tinsy PCBs.

I read tutorials that to get an LED (SMD or THT) to blink, all you have to do is add a jumper to the chip. However, I read something else about buying blinking LED SMDs, but the only ones I've found are on AliExpress.

I've included the KiCAD layout for what I'm talking about. Will this work to flash the LED, or am I way off course? If it will work, then what do I have to do to the jumper to make it happen?

This tiny PCB will be plugged into a larger PCB using headers. The Large PCB runs with +3.3v. I know it works, as it's been tested.

You need to provide a lot more information -- don't assume that the whole world knows what you are talking about when you say you are making "tinsy PCBs" or about adding a jumper to the chip. What chip?

What is it that you are actually trying to accomplish? The people that gave you this task, what do THEY care about?

 

Welcome to AAC!

but the only ones I've found are on AliExpress

What's wrong with AliExpress? I've purchased through hole LEDs from them and didn't have any issues. If you buy blinking LEDs and they don't blink/work, you can get a refund and go with a more expensive option.

What is the nature of the CLK signal? It may be unwise to use it to drive LEDs directly.

What is the Minibadge-Blinking component? Is CLK really an input? Or does it generate the CLK signal?

 

Will this work to flash the LED, or am I way off course? If it will work, then what do I have to do to the jumper to make it happen?

Solder 1 to 2 on the jumper pad for blinking.

 

Flashing Red LED

https://www.futurlec.com/LED/LED3RFLpr.shtml

 

Tayda Electronics in Thailand has through-hole blinking LEDs in a number of colors. They are a reliable supplier with a wide range of components and they ship quickly.

 

Thank you all for the help! I'll go looking. I didn't mean to be mean to AliExpress. We are just having problems getting them to accept our tax-exempt status as a school district.

My boss wants 20mm x 20mm "pretty" chips. Honestly, that's what I was given. We'd just come back from SaintCON where they had the same minibadges and she wants them made for our office. They gave me all of the files for a big 10" x 10" board that will hold 100 of these 20x20mm badges (aka, minibadges).

I'm trying to learn the lingo and what's needed exactly to get help. I'm so frustrated I'd like to toss this entire thing at her.

So the 20 mm x 20 mm pbc has 1, 1206 resistor and 1, 1206 smd led. I'm still trying to figure out 100% of what I need because it seems like JLCPCB will put them together for me if I include all of the parts. However, their parts never coincide with the parts in KiCAD's BOM.

This is one of the 20 x 20mm badges from SAINTCon and the back where I've attached a restistor and LED. This came in a handy little bag with the correct resistor and LED. That's my problem, figuring out what I need to know other than the size (0603, 0805, etc).

 

Welcome to AAC!

What's wrong with AliExpress? I've purchased through hole LEDs from them and didn't have any issues. If you buy blinking LEDs and they don't blink/work, you can get a refund and go with a more expensive option.

What is the nature of the CLK signal? It may be unwise to use it to drive LEDs directly.

What is the Minibadge-Blinking component? Is CLK really an input? Or does it generate the CLK signal?

I would love to answer that, but I honestly have no idea. You'd think after watching pcb tutorials over and over, I'd get this. I even took the SaintCON tutorial for making these 20x20mm badges but they didn't get into ordering the correct parts. They just went over KiCAD.

 

You need to provide a lot more information -- don't assume that the whole world knows what you are talking about when you say you are making "tinsy PCBs" or about adding a jumper to the chip. What chip?

What is it that you are actually trying to accomplish? The people that gave you this task, what do THEY care about?

I've added some pictures, so maybe that will help. My instructions were "Make cute minibadges". That's it. I followed a tutorial on how to make them, but it fell short of telling me which LED and/or Resisters to use other than the size.

 

Tayda Electronics in Thailand has through-hole blinking LEDs in a number of colors. They are a reliable supplier with a wide range of components and they ship quickly.

Those are nice for the front but my boss prefers the SMD is back so it's not visible.

 

Thank you all for the help! I'll go looking. I didn't mean to be mean to AliExpress. We are just having problems getting them to accept our tax-exempt status as a school district.

My boss wants 20mm x 20mm "pretty" chips. Honestly, that's what I was given. We'd just come back from SaintCON where they had the same minibadges and she wants them made for our office. They gave me all of the files for a big 10" x 10" board that will hold 100 of these 20x20mm badges (aka, minibadges).

I'm trying to learn the lingo and what's needed exactly to get help. I'm so frustrated I'd like to toss this entire thing at her.

[RANT]
I'd be tempted to do just that, along with some pointed comments about a school district wasting taxpayer dollars while, almost certainly, insisting that they are underfunded.
[/RANT]

What is the end goal here -- to have some kind of 10x10 display of something? Of what? Does she insist that it has to use these "minibadges"? It seems that there are almost certainly easier (and probably cheaper) ways to accomplish the end goal if that end goal can be adequately articulated.

 

What are these "minibadges"? Is it an IC chip? Is it a product? Where do you get them? Is there a manufacturer and part number? That might help us better understand what you are working with.

 

Do you have a part number / vendor page for U1 in your schematic?

In what way is a small pc board a "badge"? Are you trying to add blinking LEDs to an ID badge?

13 posts in, still have no clue as to what you are trying to achieve.

ak

 

What are these "minibadges"? Is it an IC chip? Is it a product? Where do you get them? Is there a manufacturer and part number? That might help us better understand what you are working with.

 

We understand what it looks like. But how is it used? That is what is puzzling us.

Can you tell us what problem it is solving and how? “Badge” usually implies identification and / or access control. How does a board with a blinking LED accomplish that?

 

This is a case where a picture, especially a picture that you've already provided, tells us absolutely nothing relevant.

As best I can tell, you went to some conference where some company was handing out little doo-dad trinkets as part of the typical conference swag. This trinket appears to have an unidentified IC somewhere that produces a clock signal. It also has a resistor and an LED connected to a three-position jumper of some kind such that you can leave the LED off. Turn it on constantly. For connect it to the CLK signal to make it blink at the rate determined by the unidentified IC. The LED's purpose is to make a cutout in the logo on the other side of the "badge" glow.

Now, apparently, someone in your district became enamored with this swag trinket and wants you to make a board that has a hundred of them on it. Okay. It's beyond me why someone in a school district wants a board with a hundred blinking logo trinkets from some company named Forescout (kickbacks?), but whatever.

Now you are asking us if this circuit, using an unidentified IC, will work. How should we know? We have no idea what this unidentified IC is and you won't tell us. You say that it's been tested and it works -- so isn't that your answer right there?

 

If some of these replies seem a bit curt or unhelpful, please remember that their authors are keen to help - it's just that you haven't given us enough information about what you want to be able to help, and that's frustrating!

It's like you have said, "I need transport to get to the school, and it has to have a light at the front". Bike? Car? Bus? How many people? How long can the journey take? How far away is it? Do you get my point?

 

Hello, LadyCret,

(I am by no means an expert, more like, as described by another member on a sewing machine forum, 'more a blacksmith than a technician') -
so please excuse me if my (solution) to your dilemma is too basic, or indeed incorrect;

have you measured the resistance, with a meter?
Have you typed in, e.g. ' Smd blinking LED 1206 ' to your search engine?
(I got results appearing to show similar items to the ones you seek, although
without looking beyond the results at the top of the page I found they seem
very expensive for a simple display......$500+ maybe for 100 led's?)
Regards,

Simon Smith,
(Plymouth, G.B.)

I hope this is OK. I've read all I can here and didn't find an answer. I realize this is way basic. I'm a School District's Cybersecurity Engineer and have been tasked with making tinsy PCBs.

 

Personally, if it were my project, I'd be looking into the swag companies and such that may sell such a thing, customized for your business name/logo.

You've probably used most if not all (if not over...) what it would cost just to order them - your time figuring things out, time asking here, time following tutorials, procuring materials, etc.

I doubt that your boss cares whether they were "created in-house" or otherwise (unfortunately, by not clarifying this up-front in your initial conversation - you may have put yourself into a corner, because if you ask now such questions as "in-house" vs "outside production", etc - your boss may wonder "just what have you been doing with your time?"...if you get what I'm getting at).

Your boss may very well have thought something more akin to "it's tech, the tech order them, he'll know what I wanted"...

Now - if your boss said to you to build them in-house - I'd be wondering where their economic sense went...