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BeatNik is my best surface-mount electronics project. It's an audio frequency sensitive personal light show -- my own wearable rock concert toy! Just one inch in diameter, BeatNik bears a PIC microcontroller, a tiny microphone, and a very bright tri-color LED.
I designed the PCB and wrote the PIC assembly language firmware (it counts zero-crossings to estimate frequency). I had a dozen boards manufactured by BatchPCB.com, on to which I hand-placed the solder paste and the surface-mount parts, then I reflow soldered the units in a simple toaster oven.
BeatNik runs for a few weeks on a CR2032 watch battery, putting itself into sleep mode and waking automatically when it detects a loud sound.
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Very high-resolution photo of the BeatNik PCB
after baking in my toaster oven: 
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Short video of BeatNik with crystal top in place, responding to music: |
Special Thanks to John DuBois for the photographs (and the years of mentoring!)
Demo video music excerpts: Ecstasy, Rusted Root -- Dark Star, Grateful Dead -- Dust Bowl Children, Union Station
BeatNik is Copyright © 2011 by Kamal Mostafa <kamal@whence.com>.
