After a year set to one side, work has finally resumed on my full scale astrodroid.

The first thing I decided to work on were the small logic displays at the front. The first version used xmas tree lights which looked great but unfortunately due to a major oversight, the voltage they worked on was completely unsuitable. I have therefore rebuilt them, again using xmas lights as the source of the LEDs (still the cheapest way to get them), but this time driven by a pic chip (Picaxe 20M2) running a custom program.

The lights are also wired as 4 separate loops, not 2 as before, which means I am able to create more interesting patterns. The program chooses 1 of 6 patterns at random, and then plays it at 1 of 4 speeds, also randomly chosen. After at least 10 seconds of a particular pattern, a new one is selected. And best of all, it all runs off an easy 5V supply.