LED | Bitcraze

It’s been a while since our last update on what started as the High powered LED deck prototype. We have finally had time to push this project forward and are aiming to have a release at the beginning of 2026.

A New Name and a Familiar Design

You might notice that the deck has a new name, something simpler and a bit catchier, the Color LED deck. The overall design and specs, however, remain very similar to the original concept:

Using a highly efficient high powered LED for maximum brightness
DC/DC driving circuitry for improved efficiency and consistent performance
A light diffuser for smooth, even illumination and wide visibility
Two versions, top or bottom, depending on your build

The Color LED Deck brings fully programmable lighting to your Crazyflie, allowing you to create and control custom light patterns in real time. It’s useful for flying in darker environments, for visual tracking experiments, or for adding synchronized light effects in drone choreography. The deck is now also compatible with the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless, bringing dynamic lighting to our most recent platform for the first time.

Software architecture

This deck will also be the first to use the new DeckCtrl architecture. If you’re curious about how that works, you can read more about it in this earlier blog post.

The Color LED deck has some intelligence built into it that runs on a STM32C0 MCU. The open-source firmware is still under development, and the repository can be found here.

Availability

The final pricing is still being determined, but make sure to sign up for the in-stock notification at the Color LED deck store page to get an update as soon as it’s available. And as always, keep an eye on the blog for more updates as we get closer to release.

As some of you may have noticed, the current LED-ring deck doesn’t play nice with the Crazyflie 2.1 Brushless. The culprit? A resource clash between the DSHOT motor signals and the WS2812 LED driver used for the LED-ring.

But good news! We’re prototyping a new LED deck that solves the conflict by switching to I2C communication. Not only does this fix the compatibility issue, it also gives us a chance to improve its features. Here’s what we’ve improved so far:

Using a highly efficient high powered LED
DC/DC driving circuitry to improve LED driving efficiency
1W on each channel (red, green, blue, white)
LEDs on both sides so it can be mounted both on top or on bottom of the Crazyflie

LED-deck mounted underneath a Crazyflie 2.1 brushless — LED-deck with a 3D-printed diffuser mounted underneath the Crazyflie 2.1 brushless

The LED we’re using is very powerful and the light is emitted from a small area, so a light diffuser is needed to get a more pleasant light. Designing something that can be manufactured is the next step of the project. Make sure to follow our blog to get more updates on this project.