“An Impressor is something that impresses, mostly by flashing, making noise, smelling, or slamming. It has has strong roots in the Omega association and is required for Phaestum and other Omega festivities.”
Each year, Omega Workshop holds a building course where a standard Omega Impressor is built (http://omegav.no/byggekurs). But for us arranging the course it’s a tradition to create a different personal Impressor. This time I decided to use a small 8×8 led matrix.
Schematic
To get the PCB small enough to fit behind the 20 mm * 20 mm led matrix I chose to use an ATmega168V micro controller. I also abandoned all series resistors and relied on PWM to limit the current.
PCB
Assembly
Software
All the frames are stored in the 16 kB program memory. To save power, it uses only one timer to control the row multiplexing and the frame counter. All the unused modules are also disabled.
With the program running on the video, it kept running nicely the whole 40-hour test period =)
