Aitken is small light, that was designed to help astronomers to see better during night sky observations without losing their night vision.
The name Aitken was chosen after Robert Grand Aitken who discovered the Red Rectangle Nebula. The shape of the nebula was also inspiration when creating logo for this project
Used for two-way charging with USB-PD. It can also be used to program the ESP32-S3 microcontroller inside.
Aitken features rotatory encoder that is used to either change the light intensity and to navigate the menu. Above that is small OLED screen.
Featuring accelerometer and gyroscope enables Aitken to be controlled via gestures. It also has 3-axis magnetometer.
The board has 30 LEDs with all of them being red in the 620 - 630nm range with luminous flux of around 4 lumens each.
| Status | Action | ETA |
|---|---|---|
| ✅ Done | Schematic design | Done |
| ❎ In progress | PCB design | 16.09.2024 |
| ❎ Waiting for PCB | PCB test | |
| ❎ Waiting for PCB | Firmware |
The MCU used is ESP32-S3FN8 with integrated 8MB flash, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 LE.
For accelerometer I decided to use LSM6DSOTR. The magnetometer used is LIS3MDLTR
For USB-PD controller, battery charger and power bus manager I chose MAX77972 mainly for the ability to program the charge voltage and current using resistors and the integrated battery fuel gauge. Power for lights is provided from AP3031 and 3V3 power rail is powered from NCP186
Aitken is made out of 2 separate boards. The first one has 4 layer stack up with main circutry and battery holders. The second one is 1 layer aluminium board with just the LEDs and connector.