I shorted out one of my sparks when I tried to put an Adafruit neopixel ring (
http://www.adafruit.com/products/1463) on a digispark. I would like to know what to do in the future, so I don't slag my remaining digisparks.
The sketch I'm running just runs through the colors, turning all 16 pins out at a time, with the brightness level of 10.
I wired the neopixel ground pin to the spark ground pin, the neopixel power pin to the spark 5v pin, and the neopixel data input to the spark p4 pin, and connected the spark to a powered USB hub that is connected to my laptop. I presume the neopixel drew more power than the spark could handle, and shorted it out. I no longer see the power LED light up, and when I connect it to the computer, I don't see any traffic on the system log that usually happens when a spark is connected.
When I hook up the neopixel ring on my Teensy 3.0 that is powered through USB, I hook up the power to the VIN pin. When I hook it up to a raw ATtiny85, I connect it to the 5v line that is the power feed (currently the 5v is from the Uno proto-shield, as I am using the Uno as a programmer). Since I was powering the spark via USB, and not through a separate power supply, I didn't have the option to connect the ring to the power source by-passing the spark. Would using the VIN pin on the spark have been better, or would I need to use external wiring like I do with a raw ATtiny85.
Thanks in advance.
Lets see, I've ruined 3 different devices in 3 days (2 via soldering mistakes, that I'm trying to correct, and the third being the spark). Maybe it is time to take up knitting
