The Mariday's BAPPR Is a Smart Buck Converter Built to Address Addressable LEDs' Quiescent Current
Delivering 5V at up to 6A from a 6-18V input, the BAPPR shuts off when the signal line goes quiet.
Pseudonymous embedded software developer The Mariday is branching out into hardware design with the BAPPR, a smart buck converter designed for LED strips — and with an automatic cutout when the signal line goes quiet.
"The BAPPR is a smart 5V 6A buck converter designed for addressable LEDs. It's smart because it monitors the signal line and if it drops to zero for more than 10ms, the converter will disable its output," The Mariday explains of the compact board. "This kills the quiescent current draw of addressable LEDs as long as you're supplying it with regular updates!"
The compact board is built around a Diodes Incorporated AP62600 buck converter, providing a 5V output at up to 6A — "though," The Mariday admits, "it does get toasty at 6A" — from a 6-18V input. Described as being in alpha, the board does come with a few caveats including a requirement for the first buffer transmission to be all-zeroes and the controlled LED strips being at least 10 LEDs in length.
The Mariday has published schematics and Gerbers for the board to GitHub under the reciprocal GNU General Public License 3, with assembled boards available on Tindie for $8.