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Engineering Roundtable - Interactive Hanging LED Array
Check out Nick Poole's Interactive LED Installation.
In today's episode of "Engineering Roundtable," SparkFun Creative Technologist Nick Poole is here with his Interactive Hanging Lightbulb Array. This project started as the brainchild of Nick and our videographer Gregg and grew into an impressive art installation that is housed in our main conference room. Check out the video:
Nick also wrote a tutorial about his project so you can build one in your workshop, garage, dormroom or wherever an extra-heavy dose of geeky flair is just what the doctor ordered.
As always, feel free to leave any questions you might have in the comments section below. Thanks for watching!
Interested in learning more about LEDs?
See our LED page for everything you need to know to start using these components in your project.
So Nick, is your job title, "One who does cool stuff" or "Master of projects"?
He's known to us simply as Poole. Nick Poole.
Nice job Nick and everyone else who helped. Super fun project.
Too bad it all has to be moved or have is it already in the plans for your new building?
Hey Nick... Just to FYI the users and hackers at sparkfun... if you are using devices that draw more then about a half of an amp I would recommend doubling up the wires in riser cable.... the voltage/current drop is tremendous on such a small wire... While it works great for leds it might give some headaches to other projects... so a heads up for the folks...
It would have been cool to route the wiring above the paneled ceiling.
For version 2, you need to add microphones around the room, and have the lightbulbs above the active speaker flash with the sound.. Like a 2-dimensional VU Meter.. Shouldn't be TOO much additional trouble.. :-)
I wonder what the noise is like of this?
72 LEDs each driven by PWM. That can't be good for other equipment.
At the end there, that's the new caption contest
I have seen Sparkfun post/have in a project (This and the giant clock at the front entrance) the use of CAT5 for power, is there a resource (tutorial) about how you have used that in the past? Just kinda curious how you guys do that...
The tutorial for it is here. It's one of the very first tutorials we did though, so it might be a little dated!
CAT5 is 8 wires each 24 AWG. What you use it for is up to you, the copper doesn't know what's printed on the jacket :-) For this project, it's convenient because it is 4 color coded pairs in a tight bundle, and he doesn't need a lot of current for each LED.
Designed a couple boards for this purpose since I was bored today. check it out! http://shannonstrutz.com/?p=747
what song is that?
its "Another Song" from this dude named Grapes: http://dig.ccmixter.org/#/user/grapes
Excellent use of conference room ceiling!
So thats the shenanigans that were going on in the caption contest from a few months back.
Yup!