The standard for theatre and stage lighting is DMX-512, a nearly 40-year old standard for controlling stage equipment over big, chonky connectors. It is essentially the MIDI of lighting, and that means oversized, expensive controllers. The Pocket Koala is the small, pocketable solution to testing out strings of DMX lights, without the overheards – except if we’re still talking about lights.
The Pocket Koala uses four buttons and four faders (or linear pots, if you’re of that persuasion) to control 256 DMX channels. A small OLED display splits everything up into four channels of 64 banks, with global and correlated color temperature available at your fingertips. Power is provided through a USB-C connector, and output is done using an RJ45 connector. Of course, the Pocket Koala may also use an XLR output with an adapter.
Compared to the lighting rigs you’d find in the back of a venue that rival the largest mixing decks, the Pocket Koala is minute at just 95mm across. Yes, it can actually fit in your pocket, but still has all the power to test a set of DMX512 lights!
The Pocket Koala is a product of Digital Cool, a Tindie seller out of Burlington, Ontario, Canada. While they’ve started their creator journey with some PCB reference coasters, their current work, including a very small battery-powered dev board, is getting better and better.
What’s more satisfying to the eye than seeing sound reactive visuals bubbling along to the beat of your favorite new techno masterpiece?! Well the ESP8266 Sound Reactive RGB LED Lamp Kit offers just that, as well as the opportunity to see the fruits of your labors in full RGB LED glory, having constructed it yourself!
Using the onboard WiFi, this technicolor illumination tower can be connected to your home network and controlled from a dedicated app. It’s main section is made up of two 8×8 neopixel matrix LED arrays – with four surrounding acrylic sheets to diffuse and display the emitted colors in unique shades, gradients, and patterns! It’ll take you roughly 20 minutes to put together, meaning you’ll be ready to let the light shine before you need to flip over your vinyl album to the other side! Other (less cool) formats are also available.
There are numerous links for the assembly guide, software configuration and information on WLED – which is completely open source, as well as being well documented. Here’s what you can expect to see with the unit in action – though we imagine seeing it move may be slightly more enticing!
This superb light will add atmosphere and glow to all your home music listening experiences – for those wild Saturday night raves to an ambient Wednesday morning yoga session. It’s sold by elekitsorparts who are based in China, and offer all manner of electronic goodies for your house and home.
Controlling LEDs using music is an exciting way of adding to the atmosphere, be it with frantic gated strobe lights or subtle glacially evloving backgroud hues. The Shades Audio Sensor Mic + MSGEQ7 Spectrum Analyzer is a great product to get started in the world of the former, designed for audio reactive sunglasses for all your raving needs – with opportunities for bold scrolling text and colourful flashing lights aplenty.
The board itself can be attached to LED Matrix shades or RGB Shades (set by fitting a jumper) and uses a built-in microphone to analyse incoming audio across the frequency spectrum – outputting the data as a spectacular light show! It’ll send varying voltages to LEDs which correlate with the dynamics of the music – meaning ambient jams behave slowly and high-octane hardcore techno, quite the opposite!
This latest version comes with a gain switch for high and low sensitivity,with a world of options for display output provided on their documentation pages found here: Shades Audio Sensor. There’s even an example of using the board without the glasses available there too, which could come in handy if you don’t want strobe lights attached to your head!
The Shades Audio Sensor Mic is sold by Macetech who are based in Oakland, USA. A finished unit is also available if you want a pre-made unit.
Thanksgiving has come in gone in the US, meaning that the Holidays are official upon us. For many that means decorating Christmas trees, interior and exterior housing surface, one’s yard, and perhaps watching Christmas Vacation for inspiration on what (not) to do. Besides traditional lighting, it’s a great time to flex your light hacking muscles!
Hacked Lighting Displays
As inspiration for your lighting display, it’s hard to beat this MIDI-based light and sound show from Christian Kratky from 2016. The build is beautifully executed, using a Raspberry Pi 2 and an industrial-style controls setup. More details are available here, or just feast your eyes on the video below for inspiration:
If you, or perhaps your neighbors, would rather have a non-musical mostly static display, the decoration setup on display in the video below looks like a nice option. As seen on Hackaday, it coordinates RGB LED strips with a laser projector for enhanced lighting, along with an animated focus piece in the middle of the house’s second story.
If you were thinking, “I wonder if Tindie has anything to help with my insane lighting project?” I’m glad you asked. Here’s a few options picked out by Tindie’s own Jasmine Brackett. Incidentally, she would be happy to hear about your lighting projects on Twitter, whether using these devices or not!
ElectroMage Pixelblaxe V2 WiFi LED Controller
At a size not much larger than a quarter, the Pixelblaze V2 controller is truly a wonder of lighting control. It’s able to drive a variety of programmable LEDs using its ESP8266 module set at 160MHz, and features a powerful editor for pattern development. There’s even an optional sensor expansion board with a microphone, accelerometer, ambient light sensor, and 5 analog inputs to allow your project to react to its environment.
Evil Genius Labs Shields and Displays
In life, and especially in hacking, one size does not fit all. For a variety of light hacking board options, you can check out the Evil Genius Labs’ boards and ready-made displays, most of which are pictured above.
AllPixelMini Universal LED Controller
For a wired solution that requires no soldering, look no further than the AllPixel Mini. The device features a Micro USB connector, and will work with Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms—importantly including the Raspberry Pi. It’s able to control up to 700 LEDs at a high frame rate, and several can be linked together via software for a truly massive display.
F8-PB LED Pixel Controller for PocketBeagle
For those that enjoy using the tiny-yet-powerful PocketBeagle, the F8-PB cape looks like a great solution for driving your insane Christmas installation. It features 8 local ports that can drive over 500 pixels each (with power injection), along with 3 RJ45 ports for expansion… That is if 4000+ pixels driven locally isn’t quite enough!
Hopefully you all are going to be taking some time off during this winter season for a little rest and fun time. I like to spend the holidays tinkering around with new gadgets and ideas. Here are some products I’m really excited about this holiday season.
The Whistled is easy to set up and attach to an LED light strip. Set up some lighting around your room, your festive tree, holiday decor table, or anywhere else you want a splash of light, and control them by whistling! Make clapping a thing of informercials past.
Sparki is the adorable (and affordable!) robot that comes ready to plug in and use with a variety of prewritten projects as well as the ability to code your own. Make Sparki into a mini robot waiter to deliver your egg nog, friendly ribbon holding assistant, or general Arduino growth project.
Maybe you are a little more like me, and spend a lot of your free time gaming (I have over 25 consoles. I might be an addict.) Grab one of these adapter kits to make classic controllers into USB devices to use with emulators. Console gaming versus PC gaming? Why not both? Play on both teams to save Princess Zelda in “Link to the Past”, race in some classic “Mario Kart 64”, or try to get past the first two levels of “Lion King” all from the comfort of your desktop.
Whatever you decide to do this month and leading into the new year, be safe and have fun. The holiday season is stressful in a number of ways, so be sure to take a breather and do something you love. Hobbies help hecticness!
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