Peggy 2
Light Emitting Pegboard Kit
In Stock.
These products normally ship from our San Francisco warehouse in 1-3 business days.
Peggy 2 Kit: $95
Peggy 2 full kit (LEDs sold separately)
Peggy Awesomeness Bundles
Save $20! Peggy 2 kit, AC adapter, extra button set, and 640 diffused 10 mm LEDs in your choice of color*.
*RGBW bundle contains 175 each of Red, Green, Blue and White LEDs.
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 is a greatly improved version of our original "Peggy" light-emitting pegboard display. Version 2 adds animation capability and Arduino compatibility. Like its predecessor, Peggy 2 provides a quick, easy, powerful and efficient way to drive a lot of LEDs-- up to 625-- in a big matrix covering almost a square foot of area. 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 batteries (3 'D' cells) or an optional 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 3mm, 5 mm (standard T-1 3/4 size), and 10 mm.
What is Peggy 2?
Peggy 2 is a low-power multiplexed controller board that drives up to 625 LEDs of up to 10 mm size. Open-source and hackable. Arduino compatible.
- Peggy 2 supports static display or animation with individually addressable LED locations.
- Peggy 2 supports programming through a USB-TTL cable, using the popular Arduino software environment. (Just like programming a Boarduino or Bare Bones Boards.) You can also use an AVR ISP programmer if you prefer.
- Uses the popular ATmega328P microcontroller and a 16 MHz crystal oscillator, making it easy to run Arduino code on Peggy.
- Peggy 2 boards can be tiled side-to-side without a gap.
- I2C (aka "TWI") interface allows data to be streamed to one or more Peggy 2 boards over a single interface.
- Small "breadboard-style" prototyping area allows other components to be added on board.
What's new in Peggy 2?
Version 2.3 of the Peggy 2 board is now shipping (released February 2010). This incremental release features the following improvements:
- Peggy 2 can now be built with a hardware serial port, in the same way as Peggy 2LE.
- The Peggy 2 circuit board is now an extra thick at 0.100" (2.54 mm), for better stiffness on that giant board, especially when loaded with LEDs.
Printed circuit boards
The centerpiece of this kit is a giant, beautifully made printed circuit board. It is 11.320x14.875" (28.75x37.78 cm) 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. Additional holes are provided for hanging the display from a hook or string. Multiple Peggy 2 boards can be set side by side to have a visually continuous field of LEDs without gaps between them.
Building it
Peggy 2 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. Not sure if this kit is for you? Download the full instructions, here (10 MB PDF File). An extended introduction to the project and its design is available here.
Programming it
Peggy 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, with a little time, Peggy 2 can also do a whole lot more. 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 ($95, US) includes the circuit board, preprogrammed microcontroller, battery holder, 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. Kits are shipping with the ATmega328P processor (as of version 2.2).
2. Options and accessories: Microcontroller upgrades for older Peggy 2 kits, AC adapters, 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 Awesomeness Bundles: Custom bundles featuring the Peggy 2 kit, plus AC adaptor, five extra buttons, and enough LEDs to fill it up. Base price includes red, orange or yellow LEDS. Choose a set of 640 matched solid-color LEDs or the R/G/B/W assortment with 175 of each. Base bundle 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:
AC Adapters
Peggy displays are designed to run on batteries; Peggy kits come complete with a battery holder. You can also drive Peggy with an energy-efficient wall-plug AC adapter.
(Click here for more information.)
| US/Canada AC adapter |
$12 |
|
International AC adapter
EUR/UK/AUS/US plugs included
|
$20 |
|
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 |
|
ATmega328P Upgrade Chip for older Peggy 2 kits
This long-awaited microcontroller is now available and features twice the memory: 32 kB of program space and 2 kB of RAM. Handy if you're building graphic or memory-intensive applications. It comes pre-programmed and ready to use with Peggy 2, complete with the Arduino bootloader for the '328. (This is the same chip that's shipping with new Peggy 2 kits, so if you're getting your Peggy 2 here today, you probably don't need an extra one of these.)
| ATmega328P for Peggy 2 |
$5 |
|
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. 10 mm superbright LEDs with diffused lenses, matched sets of 640. Just like the solid color selections available with the Peggy Awesomeness Bundles; the very best we have to offer:
|
10 mm diffused White LEDs, 640 pk |
$160 |
|
|
10 mm diffused Blue LEDs, 640 pk
|
$135 |
|
|
10 mm diffused Green LEDs, 640 pk
|
$135 |
|
|
10 mm diffused Yellow LEDs, 640 pk
|
$92 |
|
|
10 mm diffused Orange LEDs, 640 pk |
$92 |
|
|
10 mm diffused Red LEDs, 640 pk |
$92 |
|
2.
10 mm superbright LEDs with diffused lenses, the "RGBW" assortment.
Want multiple colors? You can fill Peggy 2 with 2x2 square pixels of red, green, blue, and white LEDs. (See
example here.) This package includes
175 LEDs each in Red, Green, Blue, White-- all are 10 mm type with milky-white diffused lenses. This is the same assortment that comes with the RGBW Peggy Awesomeness Bundle.
| 10 mm RGBW Assortment, 700 pk |
$150 |
|
3. 5 mm superbright white LEDs, clear lens, set of 640:
| 5 mm white LEDs, 640 pk |
$80 |
|
Additional "Mix & Match" LED Selections:
Bring your own to the party, or pick up some of ours if you like.
10 mm LEDs with diffused lenses, available in a variety of colors for your pixel art pleasure.
Priced per pack of 100.
|
White, 100 pk |
$33 |
|
|
Blue, 100 pk
|
$28 |
|
| Green, 100 pk |
$28 |
|
|
Yellow, 100 pk
|
$20 |
|
| Red, 100 pk |
$20 |
|
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:
|
