Animated Led Star
Introduction: Animated Led Star
Hello Again,
For this instructable I got the idea during a conversation with my brother, <PERSON> and brother in law, <PERSON>. <PERSON> was playing with a Led strip, one meter long wooden strip with 144 WS2812B programmable leds on it, and <PERSON> just really wanted to have one. So, I thought, "Time for a new project", let’s make him one.
To make this project a bit more interesting I decided to build a star shape. 8 legs, 4 long with 20 leds and 4 shorter legs for 16 leds. Powered by a wall plug of 5V 3A. and driven by an Arduino Nano, hidden away in the center of the star. O, and for the record, the cow isn't real, no cows have been hurt for this project.
Supplies
Tools:
* Saw
* Sandpaper
* Drill with 5 and 2 mm bits
* Hot glue gun
* Solder iron
* Pc with Arduino software
Material:
* Led strip WS2812B 1 meter 144 led/m IP65
* 8 Resistors , one per leg, 470 ohm.
* Arduino Nano
* Adapter 5V 3A with a barrel plug
* Barrel plug female round 5,5 by 1,2mm
* Some enamel copper wire
* Heat shrink tube
* Solder
* Wood glue
* 8 Screws 3x16mm
* Transparent paint
* 4 pieces of plywood 8 x 8 x 0.5 cm
* 8 sticks of wood about 30x1,5x1,5 cm
All electronics found on Ebay or Ali, and can be bought for a total of about € 20,--
Step 1: The Star
The 8 wooden sticks were sawn at a bevel of 45 degree so the all have a point at one end. Four of about 18 cm, and four of 16cm. The first the four long ones are glued together, to make a cross and than the four short sticks are glued in the corners of the first cross so we have a double cross. On leg one I drilled a 5 mm hole halfway through, so I only need a nail to hang it on the wall.
At the back an 8 by 8 cm piece of plywood is glued and screwed, with at the rear side 2 more layers of plywood with the inside removed, to make a box. Then I cut out a cavity for the barrel plug, and made a lid of the same plywood to screw on the back. And voila, we have a box for the Arduino to live in.
The wood was all sanded down to a smooth finish and painted with transparent paint from a spray can. 3 layers, because this thing is going for outdoor use.
Step 2: Electronics
Then it’s time to put on the led strips. 769
I chose the IP65 version, with the silicone layer over the leds. because it looks much better than the one in the tube ( IP 68 ). And when cut they can easily be made waterproof. I cut the strips in 8 pieces, 4 with 20 leds, and 4 with 16 leds. All the strips begin at the same distance from the middle and about 3 cm from the center, this because I wanted all the wiring out of sight.
Right in front of the strips I drilled three holes of 2mm, 3 per strip, so a total of 24 holes, all ending inside the Nano box. 32 pieces of copper enamel wire are led through the holes and soldered to the strips. The strips have three connections, 5V+ , 0V- and data wire. All eight 5V+ are connected together and to the barrel plug center pin, and the minus from the leds all go to the barrel plug outside pin.
We also need to make to leads from the barrel plug to power the Nano board. Here I used header connectors, to be able to disconnect the power from the Nano. This because while programming, the board gets power from the USB, and power from two sides is not a very good idea, and will fry the Nano. For testing and while programming, you can connect the header turned so that only the ground pin is connected, otherwise the leds won’t lit up.
Now all there is to do is connect all the led strips middle wires through a resistor to the ports of the Nano and all the electronics is ready. I used pins 2 to 9 because these are nice in a row, and connected them to legs 1 to 8, with a piece of heat shrink around the resistor for insulation.
Below is the schematics, I just drew four of the leds per strip, so just imagine there are 16 more folowing.
Step 3: The Code
Then the fun begins. Programming these strips was much fun to do. 635