Part 1: The Pre-Build
Design
Happy Days is an installation inspired by the work of the Irish avant-garde novelist Samuel Beckett who wrote the namesake play in two acts in the 60s. Designer and visual artist Irena Kukric created it in collaboration with Canny Sutanto and the aim of exploring narrative in the form of an installation. The five-minute play is staged using ten servo motors and a DC motor with an Arduino Mega and VVVV live programming environment:
We were beginners with Arduino and motors so we started out pretty basic, trying to move several motors at once. We decided to use VVVV platform in addition when we realized we needed a timeline for our script for the play. With this timeline, it was easier to deal with details such as when we want to move which motor under which angle and such. For beginners with coding, this visual programming environment is very approachable and the entrance level is much lower.
It is easier and faster to get to your desired outcome. What is great about VVVV and Arduino is that there is the Firmata library that enables you to work with both platforms in conjunction so even artists and designers with lower level coding skills are able to go from concept to realization quite easy. We used Arduino Mega which was very convenient considering the number of our motors and the pins that Mega has to offer. After we had our final order of cables and pins, we even made our own shield for it.
The play was staged without human actors or conventional (verbal) dialogue as performing a ritual in the play overshadows the performer, the object of the ritual can survive on its own. Therefore, they used these objects or rather props from the play and made them actors, animating them with motors, as you can see in the video below:
Long straight lines of LED luminescence is nice, but sometimes you may want to light up something that has an unusual shape, or is not so linear. This is where the 12mm diffused flat digital RGB LED Pixels can come into play. This cool strand of 25 NeoPixels fit nicely into 12mm pre-drilled holes of any material you like.
This tutorial is dedicated to making a LED Light Box. I wanted the box to be equally as interesting during the day as it was at night. If you decide you make your own, feel free to be as creative as you want !! However, if you lack artistic acumen, you may need to source a minion or two.
Before you start to hook up any components, upload the following sketch to the Arduino microcontroller. I am assuming that you already have the Arduino IDE installed on your computer. If not, the IDE can be downloaded from here.
The FastLED library is useful for simplifying the code for programming the NeoPixels. The latest "FastLED library" can be downloaded from here. I used FastLED library version 3.0.3 in this project.
If you have a different LED strip or your NeoPixels have a different chipset, make sure to change the relevant lines of code to accomodate your hardware. I would suggest you try out a few of the FastLED library examples before using the code below, so that you become more familiar with the library, and will be better equipped to make the necessary changes.
If you have a single strand of 25 Neopixels with the WS8201 chipset, then you will not have to make any modification below.
The code above will generate a randomised raindrop pattern on the NeoPixel LED Light box, however I have written code for a few more LED animations. These animations were written specifically for this light-box setup. In other words, once you have hooked everything up, you will be able to upload these other LED animations to the Arduino board without any further modification to the hardware/wiring, and yet experience a totally different light effect. You can find the code for the other animation effects by clicking on the links below:
Each Neopixel LED can draw up to 60 milliamps at maximum brightness (white). ie. 20 mA for each colour (red, green and blue). Therefore you should not try to power the LED strand directly from the Arduino, because the strand will draw too much current and damage the microcontroller(and possibly your USB port too). The LED strand will therefore need to be powered by a separate power supply. The power supply must supply the correct voltage (5V DC) and must also be able to supply sufficient current (1.5A or greater per strand of 25 LEDs).
Excessive voltage will damage or destroy your Neopixel strand. The LEDs will only draw as much current as they need, however your power supply must provide at least 1.5A or greater for each strand. If you chain two strands together, you will need a 5V 3A power supply.
There are 25 Neopixel LEDs per strand. Four of the wires at each end of the strand are terminated with a JST connector. The red wire is for power (VCC), blue wire for ground (GND), yellow wire is for Data, and green wire for Clock. A spare red wire (VCC) and a spare blue wire (GND) are attached to the ends of each strand for convenience, however, I did not use either. Please double check the colour of your wires... they may be different.
If you want to attach the LED strand to a breadboard, you can cut the JST connector off and use the Neopixel strand wires. Alternatively, if you would prefer to preserve the JST connector, you can simply insert jumper wires (or some male header pins) into the JST connector, and then plug them into the breadboard as required.
Each neopixel LED is individually controllable using two pins on your Arduino. The strand is directional. i.e. There is an INPUT side and an OUTPUT side. The strand should be connected such that wires from the microcontroller are attached to the INPUT side of the first neopixel. The arrows on each LED show the direction of data flow from INPUT to OUTPUT. The arrow on the first NeoPixel should be pointing towards the second NeoPixel, NOT towards the breadboard.
As a precaution, you should use a large capacitor across the + and - terminals of the power supply to prevent the initial onrush of current from damaging the Neopixels. I used a 4700uF 16V Electrolytic capacitor for this purpose. According to Adafruit, a 1000uF 6.3V capacitor (or higher) will also do the trick. You may also want to consider a 330 ohm resistor between the Arduino Digital pin and the strand's DATA pin.
If you want to power the Arduino using the regulated 5V external power supply. Disconnect the USB cable from the Arduino, and then connect the positive terminal of the power supply to the 5V pin on the Arduino. Be warned however, that excess voltage at this pin could damage your Arduino, because the 5V regulator will be bypassed.
Providing the USB cable is NOT connected to the Arduino, it should now be safe to plug the power supply into the wall. This setup will allow you to power the Neopixel strand and the Arduino using the same power supply.
WARNING: Never change any connections while the circuit is powered.
For more information about these NeoPixel strands, you may want to visit the Adafruit site. Adafruit was the source for most of these NeoPixel Strand precautions.
The following diagram demonstrates how to connect the NeoPixel Strand to the Arduino and to the External 5V power supply.
This diagram was created using Fritzing
You will need to drill a 12mm hole into the craft timber box for each LED on the strand. It is worth taking the time to make accurate measurements before drilling the holes.
I made 12 holes for the outside circle pattern (12cm diameter), 6 holes for the inside circle pattern (8cm diameter), and a hole in the centre. I also made two holes at the front of the box, two on the left side, and two on the right side. I made one last hole at the back of the box for the 2.1mm DC power line socket.
Therefore you should have a total of 26 holes in the box. 25 of the holes are for the Neopixel LEDs and one for the external power supply socket.
The lid of the box is about 19.5cm x 14.5cm long, which makes for a very tight squeeze. Probably too tight, because you have to account for the inner dimensions of the box. The inside of the box is used to house the Arduino, breadboard, the chipset side of the LEDs and cables/components. The inner dimensions of the box are 18cm x 13cm. Therefore, the housing for the LED chipset PCB (1.8cm x 2.5cm) prevented the box from closing. I used a Dremel to carve out the space required to close the lid.
Each LED is approximately 8cm apart on the strand, however, if you are really keen, you could cut the wires and extend them to any distance you require. But keep in mind that each LED is mounted on a small PCB (with a WS2801 chipset).You will therefore need to leave a minimum of 2cm between each 12mm hole to accomodate the size of the PCB+LED. If you plan carefully, you can probably squeeze a couple of LEDs within a distance of 1cm... but I would recommend that you give yourself a bit more room, because the PCBs are not square, and there is a good chance that you will have to start all over again.
In hindsight, I could have made the circle patterns a bit smaller, however I don't know if I could have packed these LEDs any closer. The diameter of the inner circle pattern must be at least 2cm smaller than the outer circle pattern. So I think "a bigger box" would have been the best option.
Once all of the holes have been drilled, paint and decorate the box to suit your style. When the paint is dry, insert the LEDs into the drilled holes in number order.
You can see the end result below.
These pictures show the Light box after it has been drilled and painted. The LEDs have been inserted into their respective holes, and all wires + Arduino + breadboard are hidden within the box.
Once you start writing LED animations for the NeoPixel Lightbox, it is very hard to stop. The colour combinations
If you like this page, please do me a favour and show your appreciation :
Visit my ArduinoBasics Google + page.
Follow me on Twitter by looking for ScottC @ArduinoBasics.
I can also be found on Pinterest and Instagram.
Have a look at my videos on my YouTube channel.
This project would not have been possible without OpenLab's collaborative effort.
Please visit their site for more cool projects.
However, if you do not have a google profile...
Feel free to share this page with your friends in any way you see fit.
Long straight lines of LED luminescence is nice, but sometimes you may want to light up something that has an unusual shape, or is not so linear. This is where the 12mm diffused flat digital RGB LED Pixels can come into play. This cool strand of 25 RGB LED pixels fit nicely into 12mm pre-drilled holes of any material you like.
This tutorial is dedicated to making a LED Light Box. I wanted the box to be equally as interesting during the day as it was at night. If you decide you make your own, feel free to be as creative as you want !! However, if you lack artistic acumen, you may need to source a minion or two.
Before you start to hook up any components, upload the following sketch to the Arduino microcontroller. I am assuming that you already have the Arduino IDE installed on your computer. If not, the IDE can be downloaded from here.
The FastLED library is useful for simplifying the code for programming the RGB LED pixels. The latest "FastLED library" can be downloaded from here. I used FastLED library version 3.0.3 in this project.
If you have a different LED strip or your RGB LED pixels have a different chipset, make sure to change the relevant lines of code to accomodate your hardware. I would suggest you try out a few of the FastLED library examples before using the code below, so that you become more familiar with the library, and will be better equipped to make the necessary changes.
If you have a single strand of 25 RGB LED pixels with the WS8201 chipset, then you will not have to make any modification below.
The code above will generate a randomised raindrop pattern on the Arduino LED Light box, however I have written code for a few more LED animations. These animations were written specifically for this light-box setup. In other words, once you have hooked everything up, you will be able to upload these other LED animations to the Arduino board without any further modification to the hardware/wiring, and yet experience a totally different light effect. You can find the code for the other animation effects by clicking on the links below:
Each LED pixel can draw up to 60 milliamps at maximum brightness (white). ie. 20 mA for each colour (red, green and blue). Therefore you should not try to power the LED strand directly from the Arduino, because the strand will draw too much current and damage the microcontroller(and possibly your USB port too). The LED strand will therefore need to be powered by a separate power supply. The power supply must supply the correct voltage (5V DC) and must also be able to supply sufficient current (1.5A or greater per strand of 25 LEDs).
Excessive voltage will damage or destroy your LED pixel strand. The LEDs will only draw as much current as they need, however your power supply must provide at least 1.5A or greater for each strand. If you chain two strands together, you will need a 5V 3A power supply.
There are 25 LED pixels per strand. Four of the wires at each end of the strand are terminated with a JST connector. The red wire is for power (VCC), blue wire for ground (GND), yellow wire is for Data, and green wire for Clock. A spare red wire (VCC) and a spare blue wire (GND) are attached to the ends of each strand for convenience, however, I did not use either. Please double check the colour of your wires... they may be different.
If you want to attach the LED strand to a breadboard, you can cut the JST connector off and use the LED pixel strand wires. Alternatively, if you would prefer to preserve the JST connector, you can simply insert jumper wires (or some male header pins) into the JST connector, and then plug them into the breadboard as required.
Each LED pixel is individually controllable using two pins on your Arduino. The strand is directional. i.e. There is an INPUT side and an OUTPUT side. The strand should be connected such that wires from the microcontroller are attached to the INPUT side of the first LED pixel. The arrows on each LED show the direction of data flow from INPUT to OUTPUT. The arrow on the first LED pixel should be pointing towards the second LED pixel, NOT towards the breadboard.
As a precaution, you should use a large capacitor across the + and - terminals of the power supply to prevent the initial onrush of current from damaging the RGB LED pixels. I used a 4700uF 16V Electrolytic capacitor for this purpose. According to Adafruit, a 1000uF 6.3V capacitor (or higher) will also do the trick. You may also want to consider a 330 ohm resistor between the Arduino Digital pin and the strand's DATA pin.
If you want to power the Arduino using the regulated 5V external power supply. Disconnect the USB cable from the Arduino, and then connect the positive terminal of the power supply to the 5V pin on the Arduino. Be warned however, that excess voltage at this pin could damage your Arduino, because the 5V regulator will be bypassed.
Providing the USB cable is NOT connected to the Arduino, it should now be safe to plug the power supply into the wall. This setup will allow you to power the RGB LED pixel strand and the Arduino using the same power supply.
WARNING: Never change any connections while the circuit is powered.
For more information about these RGB LED pixel strands, you may want to visit the Adafruit site. Adafruit was the source for most of these RGB LED pixel Strand precautions.
The following diagram demonstrates how to connect the RGB LED pixel Strand to the Arduino and to the External 5V power supply.
This diagram was created using Fritzing
You will need to drill a 12mm hole into the craft timber box for each LED on the strand. It is worth taking the time to make accurate measurements before drilling the holes.
I made 12 holes for the outside circle pattern (12cm diameter), 6 holes for the inside circle pattern (8cm diameter), and a hole in the centre. I also made two holes at the front of the box, two on the left side, and two on the right side. I made one last hole at the back of the box for the 2.1mm DC power line socket.
Therefore you should have a total of 26 holes in the box. 25 of the holes are for the RGB LED pixel LEDs and one for the external power supply socket.
The lid of the box is about 19.5cm x 14.5cm long, which makes for a very tight squeeze. Probably too tight, because you have to account for the inner dimensions of the box. The inside of the box is used to house the Arduino, breadboard, the chipset side of the LEDs and cables/components. The inner dimensions of the box are 18cm x 13cm. Therefore, the housing for the LED chipset PCB (1.8cm x 2.5cm) prevented the box from closing. I used a Dremel to carve out the space required to close the lid.
Each LED is approximately 8cm apart on the strand, however, if you are really keen, you could cut the wires and extend them to any distance you require. But keep in mind that each LED is mounted on a small PCB (with a WS2801 chipset).You will therefore need to leave a minimum of 2cm between each 12mm hole to accomodate the size of the PCB+LED. If you plan carefully, you can probably squeeze a couple of LEDs within a distance of 1cm... but I would recommend that you give yourself a bit more room, because the PCBs are not square, and there is a good chance that you will have to start all over again.
In hindsight, I could have made the circle patterns a bit smaller, however I don't know if I could have packed these LEDs any closer. The diameter of the inner circle pattern must be at least 2cm smaller than the outer circle pattern. So I think "a bigger box" would have been the best option.
Once all of the holes have been drilled, paint and decorate the box to suit your style. When the paint is dry, insert the LEDs into the drilled holes in number order.
You can see the end result below.
These pictures show the Light box after it has been drilled and painted. The LEDs have been inserted into their respective holes, and all wires + Arduino + breadboard are hidden within the box.
Once you start writing LED animations for the RGB LED pixel Lightbox, it is very hard to stop. The colour combinations
If you like this page, please do me a favour and show your appreciation :
Visit my ArduinoBasics Google + page.
Follow me on Twitter by looking for ScottC @ArduinoBasics.
I can also be found on Pinterest and Instagram.
Have a look at my videos on my YouTube channel.
This project would not have been possible without OpenLab's collaborative effort.
Please visit their site for more cool projects.
However, if you do not have a google profile...
Feel free to share this page with your friends in any way you see fit.
[Kratz] just turned into a rock hound and has a bunch of rocks from Montana that need tumbling. This requires a rock tumbler, and why build a rock tumbler when you can just rip apart an old inkjet printer? It’s one of those builds that document themselves, with the only other necessary parts being a Pizza Hut thermos from the 80s and a bunch of grit.
Boot a Raspberry Pi from a USB stick. You can’t actually do that. On every Raspberry Pi, there needs to be a boot partition on the SD card. However, there’s no limitation on where the OS resides, and [Jonathan] has all the steps to replicate this build spelled out.
Some guys in Norway built a 3D printer controller based on the BeagleBone. The Replicape is now in its second hardware revision, and they’re doing some interesting things this time around. The stepper drivers are the ‘quiet’ Trinamic chips, and there’s support for inductive sensors, more fans, and servo control.
Looking for one of those ‘router chipsets on a single board’? Here you go. It’s the NixCoreX1, and it’s pretty much a small WiFi router on a single board.
[Mowry] designed a synthesizer. This synth has four-voice polyphony, 12 waveforms, ADSR envelopes, a rudimentary sequencer, and fits inside an Altoids tin. The software is based on The Synth, but [Mowry] did come up with a pretty cool project here.
The Tamagotchi is a thing of the past. Bring your virtual pet into the 21st century with LEDs and an Arduino-compatible processor.
The post Petduino Is the DIY Tamagotchi You Can Hack appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
In the old days, a serial port often connected to an acoustic coupler that gripped a phone handset and allowed a remote connection to a far away serial port (via another phone and acoustic coupler) at a blistering 300 baud or less. The acoustic coupler would do the job of converting serial data to audio and reconstituting it after its trip through the phone lines. Modems advanced, but have mostly given way to DSL, Cable, Fiber, and other high speed networking options.
In a decidedly retro move, [James Halliday] and [jerky] put a modern spin on that old idea. They used the webaudio API to send serial data to a remote Arduino. The hack uses a FET, a capacitor, and a few resistors. They didn’t quite build a real modem with the audio. Instead, they basically spoof the audio port into sending serial data and recover it with the external circuitry. They also only implement serial sending (so the Arduino receives) so far, although they mention the next step would be to build the other side of the connection.
They say the data transmission is finicky, but it works (see the video below). We imagine using proper modem tones and decoders might work better, but would be a lot more effort. We’ve covered a 1200 baud modem before. We’ve also covered a bit of the theory behind them.
Clara is a smart lamp able to respond to your brain waves and subtly adjust your environment. The project, running on Arduino Uno, was created by Marcelo Mejía Cobo, Belen Tenorio, and Josh Sucher for a class at the School of Visual Arts in NYC (US).
The team worked with the Neurosky MindWave Mobile, a Bluetooth EEG-reading headset in order to wirelessly detect “attention” and map the lamp’s color temperature and speaker volume accordingly:
At first, the lamp emits a warm, comforting glow, conducive to idea generation and creativity. But as you start homing in on a specific idea, the light becomes crisper and cooler, and the volume of the ambient noise flowing from the embedded speaker slowly increases, enhancing your ability to concentrate and block out external distractions.
In the picture below you can see the inside of the lamp with the Arduino Uno and Adafruit Music Maker shield:
Amazon Web Services rolled out a new system today designed to simplify connecting embedded development boards to the cloud.
The post Amazon Just Made it Easier to Use AWS for Your Next IoT Project appeared first on Make: DIY Projects, How-Tos, Electronics, Crafts and Ideas for Makers.
[fichl] plays electric guitar, and with that hobby comes an incredible amount of knob twisting and dial turning. This comes at a cost; he can’t change the settings on his small amp without taking his hands off the guitar. While larger, more expensive amps have multiple channels and footswitches, this tiny amp does not. Instead of upgrading, [fichl] came up with a device that turns his single channel amp into a completely programmable one, with just an Arduino and a handful of servos.
The amp in question – an Orange Dark Terror head – has just three knobs on the front of the chassis, volume, shape, and gain. [fichl] had the idea of controlling these knobs electronically, and the simplest solution he came up with is cheap hobby servos. These servos are mounted in an aluminum box, and mount to the knobs with a few shaft couplings.
The footswitch is the brains of the setup, with three buttons, four LEDs, and a DIN-5 output jack that delivers power, ground, and three PWM signals to the servo box. With the help of an Arduino Nano, [fichl] can change any of the knobs independently, or switch between twelve programmed settings. It’s an interesting setup, and something that could serve as a prototype for a much larger system on a much larger amp.
