Every time, once a year, there's this special time for cookies, presents, warmth, family gatherings and cheesy decorations. I'm talking about Christmas, and event though it's already over, I'd still like to share with you my way of spicing up the decoration. This is not one of the usual, overly techy posts... in fact, this post just shows a mere application of the things that are already described in previous posts. Instead, I'd just like to leave you with some jolly pictures and videos. Enjoy!
Fully decorated & all lit up
Adding some color
Video showing twinkle and snowflake shows
The final video shows some interaction with music
For those of you who'd still like to know a few details: I used a 50-LED WS2801 LED strand (like this one from adafruit), in combination with the PiLight controller board, all driven via RS485 by my central PiLight command Raspberry Pi.
You know the day is going to be good when the mailman rings at the door during breakfast time. Well, apart from the breakfast obviously. In my case, I was about to receive a box of fresh new and exciting components to build awesome stuff with:
Bunch of components
Among them was the ATMEGA328P microcontrollers I was eagerly waiting for to be able to build the controller module from my previous post. I already prepared the PCB (my first double-sided one, with lots of vias), meaning that I could start with all the SMD components right away:
Pilight controller board, partially assembled
After making sure that there were no shorts or dead solder joints on the board I was ready to add the headers and program the microcontroller:
Finished controller board
Port illustration
Size comparison: Full-size Arduino, Pilight controller, Arduino Mini
Programming with ArduinoISP
The programming step was a little troublesome, because I wired the cable to connect the controller to the Arduino incorrectly, meaning that my controller was missing ground and in constant reset state. Of course the cable was the last part I checked... However, after fixing it programming went fine.
After that, I hooked the board to the WS2801 LED pixel strand only to find out that i switched data & clock on the SPI port. Oh well. Luckily, I could make it work with a corresponding cable:
Controller in place
I previously named this the "Pilight universal controller" because I designed it to be able to drive all the various pilight devices - and so I needed to try the I2C port, too:
Pilight controller driving a PCA9685 PWM board
I'm very glad it all worked out so nicely. This first controller prototype will now resume its work on the pixel strand, and I am back to the drawing board to integrate the same microcontroller circuit into the LED dimmer board.
Update: Here's another short video of the controller in action. Enjoy :)
