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particle-iot / core

Hardware design files for the Spark Core, a tiny Wi-Fi development kit.
https://www.spark.io/
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike 4.0 International
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Remove power LED #5

Closed zsup closed 11 years ago

zsup commented 11 years ago

I'm going to remove the "power" LED because, for folks who want to use the Core in very low power applications, the constant power draw of the LED might be a fatal flaw.

technobly commented 11 years ago

Why not leave the LED in the circuit, and add a solder jumper that can be "connected" by default, but easily removed. Or leave it in the circuit but just don't stuff the components.

zsup commented 11 years ago

Definitely an option, but we're very constrained for space, and in issue #6 we want to add an RGB LED, which would consume the space of the power LED. I'll definitely try to see if we can leave it on the board though, with either a jumper or unstuffed.

technobly commented 11 years ago

That is a pickle. You may already have plans for this, but as an alternate way of indicating power, how about doing a little heartbeat blip on the RGB led from the bootloader code just to know your application is at least running. Anytime you apply power, with or without code running, the LED could blip red... and if code is running blip green. All your other states could be added as well. Blipping in any case would save power :sunglasses:

zsup commented 11 years ago

True - I like that suggestion, and so long as the method of showing 'power' is user-controllable, they can always deactivate it for very low power applications. Thanks for the input!