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Frozen-Inspired Animated Pendant with Temperature Sensing

2024-01-31 | By Adafruit Industries

License: See Original Project Displays

Courtesy of Adafruit

Guide by Erin St Blaine

Overview

 

Discover your inner Snow Queen with this temperature sensing ‎pendant. Invoke the elements of snow, air, and fire using your breath ‎or body heat (or your Ice Queen Superpowers). The pendant will ‎display a snowflake, a spinning leaf, or a lovely purple flame ‎animation depending on the warmth of the air. ‎

Inspired by the elemental spirits in Disney's Frozen II movie, this ‎pendant will be sure to inspire and excite any Queen Elsa fans and ‎add an element of magic to your cosplay or Halloween costume.‎

This project uses Adafruit's TFT Gizmo, a Circuit Playground Bluefruit, ‎and a 3d printed case. There's no soldering or coding involved -- just ‎a few screws to tighten, and a couple files to upload -- so it's a ‎wonderful beginner project if you're just starting out in the world of ‎electronic cosplay, or if you have a young helper who's getting ‎interested in making stuff.‎

pendant_1

Parts

Tools & Materials

  • ‎3D Printer (or a 3D printing service) and your favorite color of ‎filament
  • Screwdriver
  • Necklace cord
  • USB cable for uploading code

If you want to add your own custom .gif images, that's easy to do as ‎well.‎

‎3d Printing‎

We're using the wonderful snap-fit case designed by the Ruiz ‎Brothers for the Circuit Playground Gizmo Ornaments guide. We'll ‎modify the case just a little bit after printing to make it fit our project ‎perfectly.‎

gizmo_tft_case.zip‎

TFT Gizmo Ornament Parts

These parts are designed to house the TFT Gizmo and Circuit ‎Playground Bluefruit. The parts snap fit together and secure the ‎PCBs in place without the need of glue or screws.‎

  • gizor-tft-cover.stl
  • gizor-tft-bottom.stl
  • gizor-tft-top.stl

house_2

I found that the top and bottom pieces printed fine with no supports, ‎but the cover needed support turned on, in order to print correctly.‎

After printing, the one modification we'll make is to use flush-mount ‎cutters to remove the supports at 11:00 and 5:00 on gizor-tft-bottom. ‎These two supports don't fit if we put screws in all 12 screw-holes ‎‎(the ornament project only required 10 screws and these two spaces ‎were left empty). Other than that, this case fits perfectly!‎

I used temperature-sensitive filament as well, so my necklace ‎changes from a light blue when it's cool to white when it's warm.‎

Assembly

Remove the tape covering the screw holes on the back of the Gizmo ‎TFT.‎

tape_3

Place the battery on top of the Gizmo with the connector facing ‎towards 6:00.‎

battery_4

Place the Circuit Playground on top of the Gizmo, sandwiching the ‎battery inside, with the USB port lined up with 12:00. Thread the ‎included screws loosely in all 12 holes before tightening them all ‎down at once.‎

sandwich_5

Plug the battery cable into the battery port and make sure the ‎Circuit Playground powers up. If it all looks good, it's time to upload ‎the code.‎

battery_6

Software for Gizmo

The Circuit Playground Bluefruit comes installed with CircuitPython ‎already loaded. We'll update the CURRENT.UF2 file and add our ‎animated .gif images. Download both below and unzip the .gif files. ‎You should see three .gifs: cold.gif, neutral.gif, and hot.gif.

CURRENT.UF2

gif_images.zip

Plug the Circuit Playground into your computer via the USB port ‎with a known good USB data cable. Double click the "reset" button ‎and the lights on the face of the Circuit Playground will turn green, ‎and you'll see a drive appear on your computer ‎called CPLAYBTBOOT. Drag the CURRENT.UF2 file onto this drive.‎

plug_7

plug_8

The lights will go out and the drive name will change to CIRCUITPY. ‎Drag the three .gif images (cold.gif, neutral.gif, and hot.gif) to the ‎root of this drive. ‎

drag_9

Here are the .gif images we've included. It's easy to substitute your ‎own animated .gif images. Make them 240x240 pixels and call them ‎hot.gif, cold.gif, and neutral.gif.‎

If you do make your own images, remember that they need to take ‎up less than 2MB total space, and that shorter .gif will make for a ‎more responsive pendant. The Circuit Playground only checks the ‎temperature when the .gif loops, so if you have a 7-second .gif then it ‎may take a while to respond to your changes.‎

circuit_playground_projects_cold

circuit_playground_projects_neutral

circuit_playground_projects_hot

Troubleshooting

If it's not working, here are a few things to check:‎‎

  1. Are all 12 screws in place and tight? A loose connection could ‎keep it from working.‎
  2. Did you orient the Gizmo correctly, with 12:00 lined up with the ‎Circuit Playground Bluetooth's USB port?
  3. Are you using a Circuit Playground Bluetooth? The Express ‎board isn't fast enough to show the .gif images (at the time of ‎writing) so you'll need the Bluetooth version, for now.‎‎
  4. Is your battery plugged in and charged? You can run it from the ‎battery or the USB port, so if you're not sure if it's the battery, ‎try plugging in with USB.‎‎
  5. Did you double-click the reset button before adding ‎CURRENT.UF2? ‎‎
  6. If you added your own .gif images, try uploading and testing ‎with ours to see if one of the images is the problem.‎

If you're still having trouble, head over to the Gizmo Guide for more ‎detailed troubleshooting ideas.‎

Software for CLUE

If you want to use the Adafruit CLUE for this project instead of the ‎Gizmo, no problem! You can download software that is designed to ‎work with the CLUE, making this project even easier to do.‎

The CLUE board is a tidy package that includes a development ‎board and a screen, along with a whole host of sensors. You won't ‎have to do much to get your .gifs displaying.‎

Check out the CLUE guide here for detailed descriptions of all this ‎board can do.‎

The CLUE comes installed with CircuitPython already loaded. We'll ‎update the CURRENT.UF2 file and add our animated .gif images. ‎Download both below and unzip the .gif files. You should see ‎three .gifs: cold.gif, neutral.gif, and hot.gif.‎

CURRENT.UF2

‎gif_images.zip

Plug the CLUE into your computer via the USB port with a known ‎good USB data cable. Double click the "reset" button and the lights ‎on the face of the CLUE will turn green, and you'll see a drive appear ‎on your computer called CLUEBOOT. Drag the CURRENT.UF2 file ‎onto this drive.‎

The LED will flash. Then, the CLUEBOOT drive will disappear, and a ‎new disk drive called CIRCUITPY will appear. Drag the three .gif ‎images to the root of this drive.‎

That's it!‎

Troubleshooting

If you're having trouble, check to be sure you're using a good USB ‎cable that passes data. Some USB cables are charge-only and won't ‎allow you to load code.‎

If that's not it, head over to the CLUE guide for some more ‎troubleshooting ideas. ‎

Use It

The temperature sensor is located here on the Circuit Playground ‎Bluefruit:‎

sensor_10

If it senses below 20° C, the "cool.gif" image will play on the TFT. ‎Between 20°-24° C, the "neutral.gif" image will play, and above 24° C, ‎you'll see the "hot.gif" image. ‎

It changes with body heat or with your breath (with a little patience). ‎Or hold it near the fire or in the freezer to make it change ‎dramatically!‎

charge_11

To charge the necklace, gently pull the battery cable out of the ‎socket and plug it into your USB charger.

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