Led halloween 3d printed2/20/2023 ![]() ![]() So, I twisted the shielding together to act as a ground wire, soldering on solid wiring to make testing easier, and tidied it all up with some heat shrink. The cable I happened to have didn’t have a dedicated ground wire and instead, used the shielding as its ground. This was as easy as stripping off the insulation and isolating the positive and ground (negative) wires. In order to have it power the LEDs and the ESP32, I needed to turn a standard USB-A to USB-C cable into a power cable. So, I was confident the Anker power bank would be plenty to keep this sign lit for hours before a recharge was necessary. ![]() The sign at most will draw 1.5A, which means on a full charge, the sign should last just under 7 hours if it were constantly showing white. However, I will be using an Anker PowerCore 10,000mAh Power Bank. This is actually low enough to allow the sign to be powered from a USB 3.0/3.1 port. Therefore, at 50% brightness and displaying white, the sign should draw 50 x 0.03A = 1.5 A. Each LED of the strips I purchased utilize 6mA per LED when displaying white (i.e., all three diodes are on and at full brightness). The visual difference between 50% and 100% was negligible. In my case, I knew that I didn’t want to set the LEDs to 100% brightness. Pretty neat! PWM is actually used in a lot of electronics to control all sorts of things. It essentially turns the LED on and off at a speed that is makes the human eye perceive a lower brightness. Instead of sending a constant, lower amount of power through the LEDs to decrease their brightness, PWM sends pulses at a width that corresponds to the amount of brightness you want. To decrease an LEDs brightness through the ESP32, it’s commonplace to use a method called Pulse Width Modulation (PWM). Depending on how bright I wanted the LEDs to be and what colors I wanted to display, the LEDs would draw a certain amount of power. One of the most important things I learned while researching addressable LEDs is determining just how much power I needed to provide them. ![]() I learned a lot researching various maker sites and watching Youtube videos. As I said before, this sign project is a learning project for me and I hope to gain plenty of knowledge to aid in my next LED project (such as a large LED matrix board). This will be my first foray into the world of addressable RGB LEDs, designing and wiring a circuit, and programming them. The ones I purchased were made by BTF Lighting in 60 LED/meter and 30 LED/meter strips. There is an upgraded version WS2813 that has additional features, but I didn’t think it was worth the added cost for this particular project. These LEDs were reasonably priced (another reason I chose the WS2812B) and are commonly among makers and hobbyists alike. I wasn’t completely sure which would be better for my needs, but I figured I could use a mix of both if I needed to. The first strip had 30 LEDs per meter and the second had 60. I purchased two strips with different LED densities. Since they are RGB (Red Blue Green) LEDs, I’ll be able to produce any color I want. So, if you have a strip of 10 LEDs, you can directly control the second LED on the strip by accessing position 1 (arrays in programming start with address position 0). Addressable LEDs essentially turn the strip into an array of N LEDs, allowing you to control any LED on the strip by accessing its location. I chose to go with WS2812Bs, which are addressable RGB LEDs. The first order of business was to select what type of LEDs to use. As you’ve already read in prior posts, the goal is to have LEDs that will allow me to light up the sign to any color I want and display colorful animations. But to take it over the top and give that extra wow factor, I needed LEDs. The contrast of black and white plastic really makes my logo stand out. ![]() Having the 3D printed sign itself will look pretty good, I think. The part of this project that will bring this sign to life is of course, the LEDs. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |