This is an LED controller for the lights that came with my In-Win A1 Mini-ITX Tower. It came with a simple 12V RGB LED strip, rather than the now-standard WS2812 addressable LED strips that are so common in today's PCs.
I made one of these ages ago for my first self-built computer using all through-hole components and an AVR microcontroller. It eventually broke after I shorted one of the MOSFETs out on my case when banging around in there while it was turned on.
This one is a refresh of that idea, with a few additions I've picked up after another decade of tinkering:
- STM32L042 microcontroller with crystal-less USB capability.
- Outputs for 12V RGB and 5V WS2812.
- 2.5" HDD screw pattern for mounting.
- No secondary side or through-hole components.
- Driverless HID device implementation.
- Linux control daemon.
- Windows control service.
- STM32 can be swapped out for:
- Silabs EFM32HG family
- EFM32HG308 in the 24-QFN package has enough timers and UARTs to support the application
- Microchip AT SAM L22 family
- FETs are jellybean
- Regulator might be integrated into uC
- Level translator has no direct replacement
- Do I really need the tristate version? Why?
- The SN74LVC1T04 (inverter, non-tristate) seems available. Could I run this inverted?