path: root/docs/projects/bikeblinkers.md

# Bikeblinkers

2022-01-13

I own a cheap bike.

![A blue bike covered with a raincoat and pieces of rag](img/bikeblinkers/bike.jpg)

Yes, this was what it literally looked like... when I rescued it from the
bikeshed where a few more abandoned vehicles belong, in October 2021.
Years of exposure to moisture and rain has rusted multiple mechanical
joints.

Dad bought me the bike when I was around ten. I stopped riding it since
high school because (a) Dad offered to drive me there and (b) it was in
awful condition. Mom rode it to the gym on occasion, but always complained
it felt shoddy.

Why rescue it then? Well, I was going to university, and the campus is not
something you would want to navigate on foot. Not bothered to buy a new
one, Dad and I scraped off the artifacts of oxidization and wiped it with
oil (the bike, not the artifacts). We installed replacement tires, and
tadaa, functional bike.

One month prior incidentally, in an unexpected chain of events — alright,
the chain is only two events long — bike slipping sideways because
I braked too hard, and me breaking my lunate bone.

🎖️ Achievement made: First Broken Bone

It was one of the smaller bones, but it still immobilized my left wrist.
Also it wasn't my bike; it was one of those rental bikes which are quite
ample on campus. Coupled with the fact that I got my driver's license in
late August, I began to care about traffic safety even more.

The traffic law targeting bicycles says cyclists are required to indicate
a turning. On an electric bike you probably already have the blinkers
(shame on those who neglect them), but what if all you own is
a human-powered crap of a bike? Sure, the convention is to just lift your
left arm when turning left and vice versa, but the law also forbids either
hand from letting go of the handlebar. I'm not nitpicking but clearly you
could do better, Unknown Law Person(s).

There's gotta be a better way. And that is when I had the idea of making
my own blinkers.

## My first PCB

The days following my injury, I did some research. All I needed was two
yellow light sources that blink at around 2 Hz, and ideally I would also
be able to make them blink together to emulate a car's hazard light. The
light source would obviously be LEDs, and the control would be a SP3T
(single pole, three throw) switch and a self-maintaining push button. But
how am I supposed to make them work?

What I needed to figure out were:

- How do I make something blink
- How to let one thing blink but not the other
- How to let them blink together if I want

It didn't take much trouble to find the solution to the first question
— NE555. The 555, when connected to an external circuit that puts it to
"astable mode", generates an alternating voltage on its output pin, the
frequency of which can be fine-tuned with a few resistor and capacitor
values. The circuit was simple enough to be drawn on paper, but I soon got
tired of redrawing every so often. So I went with KiCad, which I had heard
_so_ many times but never tried..

🎖️ Achievement made: First EDA

Honestly it was quite fun, and following [this tutorial by DigiKey on
YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3bNyZYHcRSUhUXUt51W6nKvxx2ORvUQB)
I had some basic understanding of how it works as a toolchain. Still
incapable of producing anything of value, though (you'll see why in
a moment.)

Before doing anything else I wanted to make sure KiCad is stable enough,
so I laid out a simpler schematic for the LED panels:

![16 LEDs, each four in series connected to a 2N3904](img/bikeblinkers/led_sch.png)

🎖️ Achievement made: First schematic

Now, before you point out the mistake I made here (common collector
configuration), I had little idea how BJTs work then (and still remain
largely ignorant now). Regardless, they looked good to me, and it was time
for me to turn it to a PCB.

I was intimidated by PCBs at first. I had no idea how the "copper wires"
could connect all the components without intersecting, but most of my
concern came from the multitude of vectors where things could go wrong,
most of which out of my knowledge. Also, PCB fabrication wasn't as cheap
as I would hope. My design could fail completely, ruining everything.
Thankfully Kliment on IRC, who is miles ahead of me, encouraged me a lot.
So guess what, I did it.

So basically to make a PCB you first transcribe symbols (components and
stuff) from the schematic to footprints on the board. A footprint is
generally some space on the PCB for you to solder something on or through
pads, for example an LED, which has two pads, or the 555, which has eight.
In this project I went for all THT (through-hole) parts because it is all
I learned from soldering lessons up to high school. All footprints placed,
you just run copper traces between the electrically connected pads, such
as battery anode -> VCC pin of IC.

It took a lot of trial and error to route the tracks, given I "only" had
two copper layers and had never learnt anything about vias, but the
turnout, I thought, was pretty sweet:

![A PCB design consisting of 16x 5mm THT LEDs in a triangle-ish board outline](img/bikeblinkers/led_pcb.png)

🎖️ Achievement made: First PCB design

It took about a week (Sept 9-15) to improve my design with new connectors
chosen (I honestly did not know what "Mounting Holes" are for) and based
on suggestions from Kliment regarding that 90 degree turn above D4, and
the outline of the board overall. The screenshot below is taken in KiCad
6.0, hence the different color scheme.

![Revised PCB design. A screw terminal is used](img/bikeblinkers/led_pcb_final.png)

Man, I love 3D renderings.

![3D view of said board](img/bikeblinkers/led_3d.png)

## 555

At the same time I was also working on the controller circuit, the one
with the 555 on it. Based on Wikipedia, I was able to work out the R and
C values I needed, and experimented with a 555 on a breadboard.

![
    Breadboard on which an NE555P and four illuminating yellow LEDs are
    seen. A 9V battery is behind, powering the circuit
](img/bikeblinkers/555_breadboard.jpg)

I was going to use a 9V battery, power the LEDs with it directly but have
an LM7805 linear regulator convert that to 5V for the 555. However,
Kliment pointed out it wasn't necessary and a 555 could operate under
voltages as high as 18V; plus, an LM7805 is pretty power hungry.

The schematic looks like this:

![555 IC in an RC circuit, plus several controls and outputs](img/bikeblinkers/rev1_sch.png)

🎖️ Achievement made: First logic circuit without Arduino or any MCU

Okay, time to design another PCB.

![Wide PCB. Footprints and tracks are sparse](img/bikeblinkers/rev1_pcb.png)

You might notice the tracks are not thick enough. They are 0.25mm thick,
which is pretty wasteful of board space and unfavorable for
current-carrying tracks. But as I had no experience, it went unnoticed.

The two PCB designs were finished at around the same time, so on October
1 I exported the Gerbers (a set of files factories rely on to etch, drill
and cut out the PCBs) and sent a .zip of them to a manufacturer so they
could turn my designs into physical objects.

And they came.

🎖️ Achievement made: First physical PCBs

[
    ![
        Two PCBs, fabricated using the designs above, with green solder mask
    ](img/bikeblinkers/jdb_1.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/jdb_1.jpg)

The moment I unsealed the vacuum package, my first impressions were:

- Wow, so green
- Smooth boi

It was oddly satisfying to slide them slowly between my fingers. As I had
only a few hours to spare that evening, I finished two LED panels and one
controller in quite a haste.

As I was soldering the SP3T switch (leftmost component on controller
board, identical one lying in the top right corner of this photo)
I realized I made the pads, and consequently holes, too small for the pins
to come through. This was because I took the datasheet figures as gospel
and failed to leave any space around it. Despite that, I was able to mount
it on top just fine, and apply more tin to compensate (sadly, it does not
count as SMD).

[
    ![
        A controller PCB connected to an LED panel via 3 jumper wires.
        Another LED panel is beside, but unconnected. There are 16 yellow
        LEDs on each panel.
    ](img/bikeblinkers/rev1_front.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/rev1_front.jpg)

[
    ![
        The boards are flipped, showing the solder joints
    ](img/bikeblinkers/rev1_back.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/rev1_back.jpg)

Let's give them a test. First we connect the LED panel to the righthand
screw terminal via three jumper wires. (Why three? Because I was a noob
and expected everything to work like those modules from Arduino kits: one
wire for VCC, one for GND, the other for digital signal. This required
external circuit on the LED board, hence the four BJTs.)

![A DFRobot "I/O Expansion Shield V7.1" for Arduino Uno. There is a rail
of pin headers in three rows: GND, VCC and D. An LED module from the same
kit is connected via three jumper wires.](img/bikeblinkers/dfr.jpg)

Plug in the power. Flip the switch to the right. Yup, it blinks. That's
hip.

[
    ![
        Controller and two LED panels. Righthand panel is illuminating
    ](img/bikeblinkers/rev1_test.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/rev1_test.png)

Now connect the wires to the lefthand screw terminal. Flip the switch to
the left. And...

It did not blink. The LEDs did not turn on at all. Having excluded faulty
soldering, the only possibility was a design error. I examined the
schematics and PCB layout, only to find this terrible yet subtle mistake.

![Wiring diagram on datasheet, close-ups of schematic and PCB layout](img/bikeblinkers/sp3t_pinout.png)

As you can see here the schematics agree with the wiring diagram provided
on datasheet in that pins 1, 2, 3 are placed in that order, whereas on the
PCB, pin 1 was the middle pin. As a result when I throw the switch to the
right, pins 1 and 2 connect, while in the other direction pins 1 and
3 touch, which does nothing actually. Bruh moment.

🎓 Lesson learned: double-check custom footprints

Undersized holes. Faulty pinout. Insufficient track width. All three
bugged me so much I decided I would revise it.

## Second try

In this attempt I was much more careful, checking everything twice. There
was not much to add though, so in the end I barely changed anything else.
Among the things I did do there were:

- rounding the corners
- shrinking it horizontally a bit
- cutting out four rectangular holes

The PCB layout:

![Rounded rectangle outline, components are denser, tracks wider](img/bikeblinkers/rev2_pcb.png)

They arrived in their physical form a few days later, and it was an
unnecessary kindness that they made six pieces instead of five. I soldered
one of them, and it worked as expected. Yay!

[
    ![
        New controller board connected to both LED panels
    ](img/bikeblinkers/rev2.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/rev2.jpg)

<video controls><source src="../img/bikeblinkers/rev2_test.mp4"></video>

MPEG-4 Video (4.7 MiB)

## Installation

It certainly isn't easy to install my creation. My bike hasn't got a slot
on the back labeled "blinkers go here". My solution was zipties. I did not
mention, but in my second LED panel design I added two holes for ziptie
insertion (a bit too small again, but works fine). In addition, I needed
something waterproof and transparent to enclose it in. This gave rise to
the Greatest Hack of All Time. Guess what is waterproof and transparent?

Bottles.

Plastic bottles are waterproof by definition and transparent if you peel
off the thin film glued to it. So I headed to the store and bought
a reasonably large bottle of tea. The cross section of said bottle was not
round, but rather a square, which turned out handy because the PCBs fit in
diagonally and were thus locked in place. To actually put them in I had to
cut off its neck with a knife; the opening I later sealed up with tape.
Holes were drilled in the back of the bottle for the ridiculous six copper
wires and two zipties, and the seams were covered with tape as well.

[
    ![
        Two LED panels in a plastic bottle. The rest of he circuitry is
        the controllder, a lengthy run of red/black wire pair, and a 9V
        battery.
    ](img/bikeblinkers/rev2_bottle.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/rev2_bottle.jpg)

🎖️ Achievement made: Hackus Ultimus

The wires were some red/black pairs. I'm not sure what gauge they are, but
they sure are _thicc_. To install all these I got up early the next day,
literally just taped the battery and the controller on the handlebar, ran
the entire length of wires to the back, where the bottle was ziptied to
the steel rack and reinforced with duct tape. Here is a demo, which is
super short and taken at night so you can't see anything but you get the
idea:

<video controls><source src="../img/bikeblinkers/rev2_real.mp4"></video>

I went around like this for a week or so because I was waiting for
something to complete — and that was the 3D printed case for the
controller.

## Going 3D

I had always wanted to make a 3D-printed thingie for whatever purpose.
This time it was really evident that I should do it. So I went ahead and
grabbed FreeCAD to see if my hollow knowledge of 3D modeling inherited
from Autodesk Inventor®™© could work out. I kept getting stuck,
regurgitating many of the steps that got messed up somehow, but finally
reached a pretty nice result.

![A rendering of a box, its bottom side separated. There are many holes of
varying shapes and sizes on top and on its side.](img/bikeblinkers/case_freecad_top.png)

![Bottom view. On each corner there is a vertical pillar](img/bikeblinkers/case_freecad_bottom.png)

🎖️ Achievement made: First independently made 3D model

As you can see here, I made four pillars along four corners, intended to
go through those four holes I made on the PCB, then fit into the slots on
the bottom (reverse lid?). I would then mount it all onto the handlebar
with two zipties and, of course, tape.

It would work well, right?

No.

[
    ![
        From top to bottom: red 3D printed case, 9V battery holder,
        controller board, and another flat 3D printed support thing — I
        really can't name it. There are little shards of PLA flaking off
        and sparkled around them.
    ](img/bikeblinkers/case_printed.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/case_printed.jpg)

I kinda overestimated FDM technology, and although my switches align with
the holes, apparently there are flaws.

- It looked flimsy after the support was removed
- The wire holes... they're just tiny and it was a massive pain to thread
  the wires inside given the amount of residue. It even cracked a bit.
- The pillars barely made it through the PCB holes; the slots _broke
  within seconds_.

The lesson I learned here is _3D printing isn't magic_. It's not gonna
faithfully reproduce every feature if they're too fine, and the strength
will likely be meh. Anyway,

🎖️ Achievement made: First 3D printed object

I decided to just let it be and pushed the controller board inside.

[
    ![
        Front view of the case. A toggle switch extrudes through a hole on
        its top left. On the front there is a wide slit, behind which you
        can see part of the screw terminals.
    ](img/bikeblinkers/case_front.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/case_front.jpg)

[
    ![
        Bottom view of the case. A green PCB is pushed into the case, with
        four rectangular pillars inserted through holes.
    ](img/bikeblinkers/case_bottom.jpg)
](img/bikeblinkers/fullsize/case_bottom.jpg)

At this point, Bikeblinkers seems complete. Big cheers moment!

Despite the blinkers I continued lifting my arm as a secondary indicator
because

- They are too dim to be seen in sunlight. Blame the common collector
  configuration. (See workaround below)
- I would not expect reckless drivers/cyclists to notice my tiny blinkers,
  my arm, or me
- I cannot be 100% sure the blinker is properly working

## Common collector configuration: the workaround

As said above, this kind of configuration is really unwise. You can't get
much power gain. So, as a workaround, if I want to turn on the LEDs on the
panel, I could send 9V directly to the base. Base and emitter act like
a PN junction and just let everything through, reaching a higher current.
However a 555 can't really output that much current, so we'll have to take
other measures, such as more transistors, this time in common emitter
configuration.

## Conclusion

The project was successful overall. Am I satisfied? Yes and no.

- ✔️ I learned to make PCBs (albeit terribly and error-prone)
- ✔️ The "Bikeblinkers" worked as advertised
- ❌ 555's output and toggling of the switch are not synchronized and lead
  to delayed or incomplete blinks

![
    Waveform showing a delayed and an incomplete high level on the wave labeled "LED"
](img/bikeblinkers/wave.svg)

- ❌ It is just a pair of blinkers and does nothing more

Oh no, Fred. You are _not_ letting that dreaded Feature Creep kick in.

__HEll YEs i Totally Am__

Next episode: [Byseekel](byseekel.md)