The device is comprised of two boxes, separated across the room and connected by a four-conductor telephone cable. Next to the entryway is the “brain” box. This is connected to the LED strip above the garage door. It houses the Arduino and sound generating hardware (Wave Shield). It is also hooked up to a small stereo. On the other side of the room is the “remote control.” This is the box with buttons for picking a set of ambient lighting colors as well as the hidden foot switch.
The telephone cable provides power and ground, but also has a “sense” line, hooked up to an analog-to-digital converter on the Arduino. Because of the resistor matrix in the box, each button will return a different voltage back through the sense line. If you have used iPhone or Android headphones with integrated volume and answer buttons, this is the exact same concept but blown out to four buttons and a foot switch….
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