LED Menorah

Last week on hack-a-day I saw their post on an LED Menorah that was powered by a 9v battery with the lights controlled by dip switches. I thought to myself, “gee, that’s not a very creative design”. There was redemption in the minimalist designs linked too showing a menorah soldered to a tiny2313 and one soldered to an LM2913, both without a circuit board.

These free formed designs were creative but a little too down and dirty for me. I thought I could do better, and immediately thought of the handful of tiny13 8-pin microprocessors I had sitting around. I wanted to make a menorah with the following features in mind:

• Controlled by an AVR ATtiny13
• Powered by ~3v (unregulated to save on parts)
• One button operation
• Sleep mode when the menorah “burns out” after an hour or so

I’m happy to say I did accomplish all of my goals.  More after the break.
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