So this is a project that has maybe been percolating for 7 years or so and now I feel confident enough to tackle it!
LEDs
Network Accessible Bookshelf Lighting: Update
Since the first post I’ve ended up tinkering with the code for this project every night.
Some notable additions:
- A smarter homepage,
- A new sound-reactive mode,
- An improved Manual mode,
- Behind the scenes tidying to the API.
Network Accessible Bookshelf Lighting
Confession, in moments of inspiration I tend to buy electronics kit and then end up leaving it unused for ages. I’ve had a Pimoroni Mote kit and a Raspberry Pi Zero W sitting around for some time now, and whilst I originally intended to mount the LEDs in my PC case, I eventually decided to add some much need lighting to my Ikea Kallax bookshelf. Rather than settle for a static display I decided to completely over-engineer this project and make them controllable over the LAN.
Google Voice Kit and Google Music Integration
Here’s a plugin I’ve been working on this weekend that integrates Google Music with the Google AIY Voice Kit. Simply speaking, “play playlist” will stream the playlist from your Google Music account and display the current track artist & title on the display.
LED Matrix 2.0 Update
So I finally decided on an Adafruit Pro Trinket to replace the Arduino Uno hanging off the back of my new LED Matrix.
- 3D Printing
- ...
LED Matrix 2.0
We can rebuild him; we have the technology.
So a few posts ago I hinted that I was thinking about rebuilding my old hand-soldered LED matrix using 3D printing to assist me, here’s a log of that build!
Raspberry Pi Audio Visualiser
Another Unicorn HAT project that I’ve been fiddling around with for a while. I was looking for a way to introduce kids to the idea of Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) and signal processing so with my love of blinking lights I thought I’d create an audio visualiser just like the one you tend to find in media-players.
LED Matrix
This post is a sort of eulogy. About 5 years ago I decided to teach myself a little more about electronics and thought building an LED matrix from scratch would be a good idea. Not just any old LED matrix, a 16×8 LED matrix. That’s 128 individual LEDs along with a whole bunch of resistors, transistors and a couple of shift registers for good measure.
Word Clock
After getting my first Pi Zero I started thinking about a project to embed it in. I’d seen word clocks done in various ways, but thought I’d put my own spin on it. (more…)
Unicorn HAT diffuser
I own a lot of HATs for my Raspberry Pi. Between the Unicorn HAT, Scroll pHAT and Blinkt! you might say I’m addicted to LEDs but I’ve recently managed to find a new addiction in 3D printing.
Whilst the Unicorn HAT is a lovely, colourful, 8×8 matrix, the individual NeoPixels are naturally round and quite bright. Needing to get to grips with our Maker Space’s 3D printer I decided a good first project would be a diffuser that would turn those circular LEDs into square ‘pixels’.