Sunday 2 September 2018

WS2812 Cycle Lights Using a Arduino Pro Mini


Really simple project.
Arduino Pro mini, with an 8 LED WS2812 stick, a touch switch, finished with 1x 18650 battery all mounted inside a 2x 18650 powerbank charging case. Sketch includes the FastLED library.

Tested duration in flash mode: 14hours

Time taken to complete project: just under 1hour
Time taken to edit video: 8+ hours LoL (not good at this really)

Camera: Sony HDR-CX405
PC: Optiplex 9010 i5 8GB Ram running Linux Mint 19

Notes
This came out much better than I had expected, especially using the powerbanks case to contain all the components. It is also possible to replace the Arduino Pro Mini with the sketch uploaded onto a ATtiny85 and yes I've tried it and it works just fine.


Ideally it would've been nice to use another touch switch as the Power ON/OFF switch but I have no idea (yet) how to power up any Arduino board using an electronic switch such as these ones.




Bridging both solder points A & B means, as soon as power is applied, the switch in ON, next time you touch the case, it goes off ie it toggles.


This is where you get your 5V and GND power source from.


And yes, don't forget this is still a Powerbank. I would definitelty use this when I create Timelapses on my Sony FDR-X3000 action camera.

Thoughts
The possibility of using this concept has opened many idea opportunities and in my mind I have already formed 4 new projects:-

- Garage minder: detect movement in garage inform household via radio signal
- Emergency House lighting with Solar Panel backup
- Fishing Underwater night LED lighting rig
- WS2812 Christmas tree lighting https://youtu.be/if178oluID4

It has been a while since I've deleted all my old projects, I'll attempt to recreate them again and repost.

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