Peggy 2LE
Light Emitting Pegboard Kit
In stock.
These products normally ship from our San Francisco warehouse in 1-3 business days.
A "Pegboard" soldering kit to make a fully addressable and controllable array of up to 625 LEDs. Arduino compatible, open source, and hackable.
Peggy 2 LE is a smaller version of our "Peggy 2" light-emitting pegboard display. Peggy LE 2 provides a quick, easy, powerful and efficient way to drive a lot of LEDs-- up to 625-- in a matrix designed for 5 mm LEDs. You can make an LED sign for your window, a geeky valentine for your sweetie, one bad-ass birthday card, freak the holy bejesus out of Boston, or instigate the next generation of low-pixel-count video games.
Your call. It's a versatile, high-brightness display. How you configure it and what you do with it is up to you.
The display can run off the included ac adapter, and is designed to drive as many LEDs as you care to solder into the holes. The board can accommodate LEDs in any color and in several of the most common sizes, including 3 mm and 5 mm (standard T-1 3/4 size).
What's New in Peggy 2LE?
Peggy 2LE supports the same basic functionality as the larger Peggy 2: it drives up to 625 LEDs of up to 5 mm size. Still open-source and hackable. Arduino compatible. Code-compatible with Peggy 2-- every Peggy 2 program can run on the Peggy 2LE.
The four main differences between the two are:
- Peggy 2LE is smaller-- about 1/4 the size.
- Peggy 2LE does not have a battery box. You can still use batteries if you want to (3xD cell) but a holder is no longer provided. Instead, we include the AC adapter.
- Peggy 2LE does not have the breadboard-style prototyping area on board. (Did we mention that it's smaller?)
- Peggy 2LE can be built with a hardware serial port.
Hardware serial port option
Peggy 2LE can optionally be built with a hardware serial port. What used to be a tricky hack is now supported with a simple wiring change. If you build it this way, you can use the serial port while running the display, and you can use it to send or stream data or images to the Peggy. (Note that the pins used to replace the serial port otherwise go to the I2C interface and to button b5 on the PCB. So, you'll need to choose between I2C and Serial.)
Printed circuit boards
The centerpiece of this kit is a beautifully made printed circuit board. It is 9.625x5.9" (245x150 mm) in overall size, two-sided with plated through holes.
The board is manufactured with black epoxy soldermask on both sides for high visual contrast, and component locations are labeled on the top side of the board with a white silkscreen. The boards are RoHS compliant (lead free), manufactured to UL 94V-0 standards, and fully electrically tested. Mounting holes are provided at all four corners. Multiple Peggy 2LE boards can be set side by side to have a visually continuous field of LEDs without gaps between them.
Building it
Peggy 2LE is sold as a soldering kit [?]. Basic electronic soldering skill is required, and you provide basic soldering tools: a soldering iron + solder and small wire clippers. No additional knowledge of electronics is presumed or required. Easy "through-hole" construction and clear, full-color printed instructions. Assembly time: 1-2 hours plus time to solder the LEDs themselves. An extended introduction to the project and its design is available here.
Programming it
Peggy 2LE comes pre-programmed with a routine that lights up all the LED locations, so you can make a basic LED sign or display without any programming at all.
Of course, Peggy 2LE is designed to do a whole lot more, and we strongly recommend all users to have a programming cable available. The easiest way to get started is through the Arduino software environment, for which you will need a USB-TTL cable. You can download the Peggy2 Arduino Library (along with several example programs) here. The library is an evolving open source project and your own code contributions are welcome.
You can also find a technical discussion of programming Peggy 2 here, along with code examples for use with AVR-GCC.
Kit Configurations
This is an open-source project. In keeping with that spirit, we are offering these kits and the parts for them in different configurations for flexibility. LED selection is obviously a personal choice; you get to pick your own LEDs separately.
1. Full Kit ($75, US) includes the circuit board, preprogrammed microcontroller, power supply, LED driver chips, high-current transistors, power switch, two buttons, rubber feet and all other components needed to make the pegboard display base, along with full color printed instructions. Just add batteries and LEDs.
2. Options and accessories: extra buttons to put arrow keys on your Peggy, and other related items.
3. LED sets, either to fill up Peggy uniformly for your programmable display or to fill it part way or with different colors for making pixel art.
4. Peggy Mini-Awesomeness Bundles: Custom bundles featuring the Peggy 2LE kit, five extra buttons, and enough LEDs to fill it up. Base price includes blue or white LEDS. Base price includes the US/Canada AC power adapter which can be optionally upgraded to international multi-plug with US, UK, EUR, and AUS plugs. Add on the USB-TTL cable to get the easiest interface for reprogramming Peggy 2.
Options and Accessories for Peggy 2 kits:
Additional button pack
A package of five extra miniature tactile button switches that you can add to Peggy 2. Could come in handy if you're reprogramming Peggy to be a game. Four arrow keys and a "fire" button?
| Extra Button Set (5) |
$2 |
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LED Selections:
Special LED sets for Peggy 2
The following LED selections are specially selected BIG packs of our very best (i.e., brightest and most uniform) LEDs, recommended if you plan to fill *every* LED location with an LED and want a uniform-looking display. These are super-cool, but are not cheap, and it's a lot of LEDs to solder!
1. 5 mm ultrabright LEDs with clear lenses, matched sets of 640. Just like the solid color selections available with the Peggy Awesomeness Bundles; the very best we have to offer. The blue, green, and white LEDs have a 20 degree viewing angle. The red set are a special-order high brightness model with a 40 degree viewing angle.
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5 mm clear lens White LEDs, 640 pk |
$80 |
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5 mm clear lens Blue LEDs, 640 pk
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$80 |
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5 mm clear lens Green LEDs, 640 pk
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$90 |
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5 mm clear lens Red LEDs, 640 pk |
$170 |
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Additional "Mix & Match" LED Selections can be found on our LED Headquarters page.
About our kits
We take great pride in our kit designs; we believe in clear instructions, unambiguous labeling, goodies, and including a few extras of most small, easy to lose and/or break components. Assembly of the boards is pretty straightforward if you like to solder; it basically requires stuffing the components in the boards and soldering (a lot of) easy through-hole components. You should have prior experience soldering and basic soldering tools. Read more about what to expect in our kits here.
Lead Free
Peggy circuit boards, components, LEDs and power supplies are all RoHS compliant (lead free). If you're building one of our kits, you'll find that everything works well with either regular or lead-free solder-- whichever you care to use.
Suggested Accessories:
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