Brian Dorey added a video camera to a microscope using a Raspberry Pi High-Quality Camera. The camera worked ok but one issue was the color temperature of the ring light was very cold which meant any photos or videos came with a blue colour cast. This was especially evident on red or black PCBs where the LED colour made it difficult to get a good image.
To fix this problem we decided to design a new ring light using RGB LEDs. This would allow us to change the colour temperature to suit the subject that we are recording. Using programmable LEDs would also allow us to individually control each of the LEDs opening the door to adding new features like turning on a small segment of LEDs on one side to change the direction the light is coming from. This can be useful when looking at the text on integrated circuits.
We came up with a set of features that we would like to build into the ring light.
Adjustable brightness
Adjustable colour temperature
Adjustable light direction
Controllable through a single rotary encoder
Wi-Fi enabled with a web interface and API for external control
We chose WS2812B programmable RGB LEDs as these are easy to control and can be wired in series. The diameter of the light was based around the size of the aluminium tube that was fitted to the microscope.
We used an ESP32 module to control the ring light. This gave us the Wi-Fi remote control that we wanted, and we have plenty of experience programming the ESP32 modules.
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