aerokeith

Fire Goddess – Update #1

After another full day of work, the Fire Goddess proposal was submitted to the Burning Man art grant committee. Contrary to what we all thought yesterday, the proposals were due at 5pm, not noon, so Peter and team* had “plenty” of time to make many improvements to the maquette before the final photos/videos were submitted.Continue reading “Fire Goddess – Update #1”

Pele the Fire Goddess

My first art lighting project was a collaboration with Peter Hazel to create Niloticus, a 40-foot ceramic tile and glass crocodile that was displayed at Burning Man 2019. Although the 2020 and 2021 Burns were cancelled, I’m working with Peter again to create an artwork for the 2022 event in late August. His plan isContinue reading “Pele the Fire Goddess”

OpenRocket LED Controller

Now seems like a good time to write about the LED controller that I’ve been using for the last year or so. I based the Olympic Rings project on this controller, but there are several prior and subsequent project that I haven’t posted about yet (stay tuned for those). I originally designed the OpenRocket boardContinue reading “OpenRocket LED Controller”

Olympic Rings

My wife is a huge Olympics junkie and likes to host large parties to view the opening ceremonies. Jell-O shots in the colors of the Olympic Rings, flip cards to score the costumes in the Parade of Nations, the whole enchilada. So for the 2020 (really 2021) Summer Olympics, I decided too make her anContinue reading “Olympic Rings”

FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #5

I’ve been distracted on other projects, but now I’ve managed to follow through on everything I proposed in Update #4. The v4 revision of the FidoLight board is now just a 4-channel constant-current driver, and all the control functions are now moved to a very flexible Distributed Lighting Controller (DLC) board that can drive twoContinue reading “FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #5”

FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #4

I’ve now received the v3 revision of the FidoLight PCB boards, and initial testing is promising. As you can see in the photo below, I’m now using all SMT components, including the pin headers used to mount the Teensy 4 MCU. That will allow me to mount the board directly to the metal enclosure (i.e.Continue reading “FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #4”

FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #3

After a 2 month hiatus to focus on other projects, I now have some progress to report on. FidoLight Summary A compact 10W RGBW spotlight with an intelligent driver that can be controlled via a multi-drop/addressable RS-422 serial bus. The driver board supports high-level lighting effect commands such as Fade <to color> <duration> . MicrocontrollerContinue reading “FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #3”

FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #2

[This blog entry was originally posted to Reddit in May 2021] Lots of progress to report on my development of an addressable, waterproof spotlight based on the Cree XM-L high-power RGBW LED. (Link to previous update). LED I’ve now received and tested these Cree XM-L RGBW star modules using a Sparkfun PicoBuck LED driver board. I initially testedContinue reading “FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #2”

FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #1

[This blog entry was originally posted to Reddit in April 2021] This is an update to my original post describing my plans to design/build an addressable LED spotlight based on a 3W Cree XM-L color module. There are three key challenges I’ve been grappling with: The lights require a weatherproof enclosure that is very small and unobtrusive TheContinue reading “FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #1”

FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: The Beginning

[This blog entry was originally posted to Reddit in March 2021] For various art-lighting projects, I’ve been in search of a high-power RGBW (or maybe just RGB) spot/flood light fixture that is water/UV resistant and ideally has a SK6812 (RGBW) compatible serial interface. I’ve seen (but not tried) this 10W addressable RGB fixture, but it’s a bit largeContinue reading “FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: The Beginning”