Sparkle Motion Mini is part of Adafruit's series of "Sparkle Motion" boards, which are their attempt to make the best small WLED-friendly smart LED driving board in the whole world.
Adafruit's resident mermaid, firepixie makes a lot of projects with WLED, and she loves it! So, how to make something powerful enough to drive advanced LED projects that need a compact design?
The Mini version of the Sparkle Motion is a simpler version of the full-featured Sparkle Motion; Adafruit give up the high voltage support and built-in IR receiver, to make it under 1 square inch in size!
This version includes a pre-soldered terminal block, that means no soldering is required to get started: a small screwdriver will get you going instantly. However, the board is bulkier and the terminal block overlaps half of one of the breakout pads.
By using a 4-layer board and double-sided assembly, Adafruit have put together this feature set:
- Power via USB Type C for up to 5V 4A input - you can use off-the-shelf USB battery packs for portable operation.
- 4 Amp resetting fuse to protect from over-current drive
- ESP32 mini module with built-in antenna port - the classic ESP32 has the best WLED support even if we'd prefer the 'S2 or 'S3. Comes with 4 MB of flash, dual core 240MHz Tensilica, WiFi, Bluetooth® LE, and Bluetooth® Classic support.
- USB-serial converter with auto-reset
- Two output signals plus 5V power and ground - both signal output are level shifted to 5V. These are on 0.1" spaced breakout pads.
- Extra 2x3 0.1" breakout pads with 4 more GPIO plus 3V power and ground.
- Built-in I2S microphone
- Stemma QT I2C port to connect external sensors/OLED/etc
- User button on GPIO 0 plus Reset button
- Red built-in LED on pin 12
- Small built-in NeoPixel on pin 18
- Separate analog/digital input JST port for analog input, potentiometer, microphone, or external IR receiver on pin 13
- Compact enough you can use it for wearable projects - 1.2"x0.8" / 30mm x 20mm size with mounting holes
While Adafruit recommend it for use with WLED, it will also work fine as a compact ESP32 board for use with Arduino, ESP-IDF, MicroPython, CircuitPython, or any other ESP32-supported codebase.
Comes as a fully assembled driver board with a 3.5mm terminal block
Also, unlike the bigger version, Adafruit dropped the on-board IR receiver; however, it's easy to add one by plugging in a JST SH 3-pin socket cable and slotting in an IR receiver module.
Technical Details
Product Dimensions: 32.3mm x 19.7mm x 12.4mm / 1.3" x 0.8" x 0.5"
Product Weight: 5.1g / 0.2oz
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Primary Guide: Adafruit Sparkle Motion Mini
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