Blog Posts

Liana B made a fashionable LED scarf.

As Liana says, wearables are not just for raves anymore; they’re a practical solution to being seen at night as well as a fashion statement to wear at parties an events.   On her Instructables page, she offers a pretty good tutorial on making your own light up scarf.

Example code for the project is available on GitHub.

 

Paul took the Monolith Synth to Teardown, a hardware conference hosted by Crowd Supply.

Not happy with showing the same Monolith Synth at another event, Paul decided to marry the audio library and OCTO library together to experiment with alpha blending and create LED visualization as the Monolith is being played.

The code for the project is GitHub – LED Visualization and the Monolith Synth.

gltovar was looking for a physcial project to build after focusing of software for a while, so he made a custom Starcraft keyboard.

After going through some tutorials on keyboard wiring, soldering, and PCB design he settled on on a physical keyboard and hacked it to make each column of keys adjustable.

Code for the project is available on Git Hub.

wb8nbs created an Si5351 powered signal generator.

This compact signal generator is packed into a tin that’s just slightly bigger than the ones those curiously strong mints come it.  It uses a breakout board with Si5351 and a TCXO from Etherkit.com.  A TCXO (Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillator) allows for very accurate frequency.  The unit brings out all three signal outputs, individually programmable for frequency (500 Khz to 160 Mhz), sweep width and limited level control. There is a Teensy LC for control using Si5351 libraries from Jason Milldrum NT7S. The battery and charger are out of a cheap cell phone booster.

You can read more about the project on wb8nbs’s blog.  A zip archive of the code for the project as well as a schematic can be found here.

Sebastian Tomczak made a simple, but cool drum machine using a Teensy-LC.

Code for the project is available here.

Michael Diesing (forum user Joegi) built a solar powered chairoplane model.

Inspired by a chairoplane model  he already owned that only worked on bright summer days, Michael made this improved version that works even in winter.  He did this by creating a circuit where two solar cells charge 2 5F, 3V super capacitors.

Freeside, a hackersapce in Atlanta, built a 10-foot tall infinity mirror.

They did a great job documenting the build in this video.

This impressive build features a 7 x 4 ft infinity mirror mounted in a 10 ft tall archway.  They used WS2812 addressable LEDs driven by a Teensy to create the infinity effect.

Barkus Labs made a cool LED graduation hat.

Using a 32×32 neopixel display, a Teensy 3.2, and a bluetooth module, he was able to make the display programable via a smart phone.  He has an additional video showing the code for the project as well as a link to a Google drive with the code.

His build inspired Sirrom0206 to build an LED graduation cap for a friend’s son.  He posted a video about the build here.

 

Alex Glow made some pretty cool light up Merlin Armor.

This carbon-fiber armor has an LED underbelly.  It uses NeoPixel LED strips to run light animations.  The armor pieces can be made to mix and match.  All pieces hook up to a battery back and micro-controller – both of which Alex made some 3-D printed holders to wear on a belt.

The LEDs are mounted so they face towards the skin to create an under-lit effect.

Code for the project, as well as the plans for the 3-D printed utility pockets, can be found on Hackster.IO Project page.

LeoneLabs created PixelBrite, a study in pixels.  This amazing build is more than a light table.  It’s a digital Lite-Brite, minimalist light sculpture, a disco light, a sound reactive light show all rolled into one.

With batteries and a slot for and SD card to stream patterns without a computer, PixelBrite can act as a standalone light.  You can also plug it into a MIDI controller and have a interactive light show.

The Instructible page on the project is well worth reading.  It’s incredibly detailed and contains not only build details (like a complete bill of materials spreadsheet) but some information on color theory and display science as well.

The project is open source with the code available on GitHub.