Developer and maker Ben Wasserman has, like many badge fans, a hefty assortment of Easy Add-Ons (SAOs) — however somewhat than letting them languish in a desk drawer has designed a modular mounting system that lets them go on show, totally powered up.
“I collected too many SAOs (over 20) at Supercon final 12 months, and I wish to show them correctly,” Wasserman explains. “I am impressed by the SAO Wall at Supercon, however it’s too huge for my house and I would like one thing extra modular so I can match it in varied places and increase as wanted. I additionally did not wish to cope with batteries (changing actual ones, or completely powering faux ones), so I needed exterior energy.”
Should you’ve bought SAOs sitting in a drawer, why not put them delight of place in your wall as an alternative? (📷: Ben Wasserman)
The Easy-Add On (SAO) commonplace, previously recognized by a much less family-friendly title, specifies a easy interface between digital badges and their accent PCBs. As rising numbers of occasions decide to launch a badge design, it is turn into frequent for exhibitors and attendees to design equipment for commerce — and, as Wasserman discovered, additionally frequent to finish up coming house from such an occasion with pockets bulging.
The show system Wasserman has designed is predicated on 3D-printed hexagonal mounts — “hexagons are bestagons,” he explains, “and tile properly with themselves” — with a central PCB providing 4 SAO ports every. There is a USB Sort-C connector for energy, and pads to mount a Raspberry Pi Pico W or Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W microcontroller growth board to offer the system connectivity and controllability. If you should show extra SAOs than a single hexagonal tile can host, you’ll be able to chain energy between a number of mounts.
The tiles can share USB energy, and there is a place to mount a Raspberry Pi Pico W or Pico 2 W for SAOs requiring a driving microcontroller. (📷: Ben Wasserman)
“I am hoping the design is versatile sufficient that folks could make upgrades which can be backwards suitable and there might be variants of the design that can be utilized collectively,” Wasserman says. “I would like others to have the ability to additionally show their SAOs at house, and I hope this may make that simpler. I work primarily in software program, so this was a enjoyable electrical and mechanical design and manufacturing problem.”
The undertaking is documented in full on Hackaday.io, with KiCad undertaking information and FreeCAD body design with 3D-printable STLs on GitHub underneath an unspecified license.
