Hexpansions

For EMF 2026, I designed two hexpansion circuit boards.

These were some of the first circuits boards I've designed and had manufactured, so I kept it simple. They're primarily just things to be illuminated with LEDs, so with inspiration from John T (@grajohnt) they have a small potentiometer, a resistor and LED. There's two main versions, the Illuminated Rubber Duck and the Threadz 'n' LEDz. Many thanks to those who have published their hexpansion KiCAD files, I had problems with the official base and thus mine are based from the Interposer hexpansion files, because that passed the design validator in KiCAD.

Illuminated Rubber Duck

This comes in two versions, the rarer "Version 1 January 2026" and the more common "Version 1.2 May 2026". They're electrially identical, just I noticed after the first prototypes were made the potentiometer on the back would block the USB ports if plugged into the relevant slots. They're not all strictly ducks, I found other "rubber" toys that had a squeaker on their base and would fit. The maximium size of the object is dictated by the seperation of the edge of the badge and the LED.

Animals included:

Yellow Ducks 🦆
Flamingos 🦩
Pigs 🐖
Dinosaurs 🦖🦕
Frogs 🐸
Cat 🐈
Hedgehog 🦔
Seal 🦭
Pufferfish 🐡
Chicken 🐔
Turtle 🐢

Threadz 'n' LEDz

This was the second design and benefited from the component position learning from the first version of the illuminated ducks. However, production proved more difficult than expected, with issues with some LEDs not illuminating and lack of forethought about exactly how the fabric would interact with the PCB. Only a single one has been fully finished at time of writing this, which has been nicknamed the tribble hexpansion for obvious reasons. It was the idea for these to be more complex and not simply fluffy pads, but I guess I'll see what happens before EMF 2028.