Adafruit Learning System – What you’ve made: Boat Lighting Test with NeoPixel Strips #neopixel #LEDs #projects
James shared a project — configuring RGB NeoPixel strips for lighting patterns under the gunnels of his boat! You can see the video of his pattern tests on his page on Facebook here. Thanks for the kind words and the great project, James!
I’ve been working on decorative lighting for under the gunnels on my boat. This is the first test with the lights mocked up under the gunnel, my phone’s camera doesn’t do it justice and the really bright street light doesn’t help either. Currently the lights are just cycling through each of the patterns once (17 currently).
When it’s finished there will be one strip of LEDs (30) under both gunnels (video is only of one strip), there will also be a control to choose which light pattern I want at a given time and a dimmer nob so I can turn the brightness down when desired. The electronics will be enclosed in a Pelican case and installed inside the center console where it will be wired to an empty accessory switch on the dash.
Electronics are Arduino Uno, 2 x 1 meter (30) RGB neopixels, 5v 10A dc/dc converter. The converter is overkill as the strips will really only use 1-2 amps each, but I will have lots of room to expand. All electronics purchased from Adafruit Industries and pretty much all of my knowledge about the Arduino has come from http://learn.adafruit.com/ I highly recommend this site.
Overall I’m very happy with the outcome and I will proceed to setup the second strip for the other side of the boat and finalize my electronics enclosure…..
Adafruit NeoPixel Überguide: “Incorporating scads of LEDs into an electronic project used to be a hairy prospect, a veritable rat’s nest of wires and code. The arrival of dedicated LED driver chips brought welcome relief, offloading grunt work from the microcontroller and allowing one to focus on the application. Much simpler, but still not “Christmas light” simple. The WS2812 Integrated Light Source — or NeoPixel in Adafruit parlance — is the latest advance in the quest for a simple, scalable and affordable full-color LED. Red, green and blue LEDs are integrated alongside a driver chip into a tiny surface-mount package controlled through a single wire. They can be used individually, chained into longer strings or assembled into still more interesting form-factors….” (read more)
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Python for Microcontrollers — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 8.1.0 and 8.2.0-beta0 out and so much more! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
