Super FlashLight

Our Super FlashLight Information Page

Introducing The Super FlashLight!

Another really fun learning tool for Arduino Coders everywhere, this is not your ordinary flashlight. We jumped on the new LED technology using the WS2012 5050 RGB LED Light Rings with Integrated Drivers. They are all over the place and they are awesome! Each LED is addressable individually so there is nothing we can't do with LEDs these days!

So let's look at some of its features:

47 fully addressable LEDs - This means each LED can be any of 256 colors of your choice for some Dazzling light displays!
4 fully programmable Buttons - Even though these are momentary type, we can program them to toggle giving us an incredible amount of flexibility.
2 18650 Lithium Ion 5000mAH batteries - This provides for over an hour at maximum power and most importantly they are rechargeable. Charger and 2 extra batteries are included.
The Arduino Nano Micro-controller - This mini Arduino has most of the capabilities of the Uno and perfect for this project. We only need 7 digital pins to control the whole thing. A power switch on the bottom of the flashlight barrel turns it on/off.
Accessories Included - Programming Cable, Programming Cradle, 4 batteries, and Charger.

Four buttons is a lot for a flashlight, but we wanted over the top capability. The Red button (as currently programmed) provides for Low, Medium, High, Off of white light emulating a standard flashlight with those settings. It is set for toggle action so each time you press the button you get a different intensity. The next button to the right - Press Once and watch the show! Thanks to Adafruit for offering us a programming Library for Arduino, we can choose many Dazzling light displays from TheatreChase to Rainbow to ColorWipe and many more special effects. The button below the Red one is currently set to momentary. You press the button and all the lights light up in various colors. This button is meant to be used to program each LED individually with the colors of your choice. The fourth button is used to feature 9 different individual programs. Press once to get Program One, Press again to get Program Two, etc.

At the end of the Flashlights Barrel, you will find a round toggle switch. This is to power down the entire system. This is essential and highly recommended between uses. With the track record of Lithium Ion Batteries, it is strongly advised to turn it off between uses.

We packed this Super FlashLight with 47 individually addressable LEDs! The more the better to a point. There are current limitations, so it takes a bit of programming discipline to protect the Micro-controller, but this package turned out to be very well balanced in the end. The rings we chose are 7 Bit (7 LEDs), 16 Bit and 24 Bit arrays.

The Programming Cradle lets lets you set the flashlight down without it rolling away and the Mini-USB cable connects directly to the Arduino Nano for Programming. We use the Arduino IDE available at The Official Arduino Web Site for programming. This is an intermediate to advanced programming tool, although I have grandkids that are 9 years old or so that can change the light display to whatever they choose.

You can Purchase one of these Gems on our Buy-It-Now page!

Be sure to follow all of the comments in the program when changing the code. The capability to burn out the LEDs and ruin the batteries and/or the Nano is at your fingertips! Take this warning seriously and it will last a very long time. To be specific, the Arduino allows for brightness levels of between 0 and 255. Due to the fact that we packed 47 LEDs in this package, you MUST keep the brightness level down to 127 (255/2) on each LED. This is not a handicap at all as you would see when you TRIED to look directly at them using 127 as the intensity. The warning is because the Nano can only handle small current levels at each digital pin. Please do not attempt to burn your house down or worse by ignoring this very serious warning! If you are a risk taker (i.e stupid), do not purchase this product!