Project Updates: May 2023
The last couple of months have been super busy. I’ve got seven projects to update you on! Octopus I last wrote about this project in the January update. The customer isn’t quite ready for delivery, so I put off completing the work on the “zap” lighting effect I described in January. However, my blog posts…
FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #8
Well, there’s been lots of progress on upgrading my woodworking shop, but I won’t bore you with that. Somewhat less progress on the various “big” lighting projects, but there are a few updates on my FidoLight project that I think you might enjoy hearing about. As you may recall, I’ve been working for a couple…
Project Updates: February 2023
As I predicted in last month’s project update, there have been lots of distractions that have prevented me from fully completing the Octopus project. First, the massive amount of snow we’ve had this year in the western United States has motivated several ski trips. Lots of fun both here at Lake Tahoe and in Utah.…
Debugging with Capture Logs
This article describes a technique for debugging microcontroller firmware when a full-featured debugger or equivalent functionality is not available, and when print-statement debugging (also known as printf() debugging) is cumbersome due to the high rate at which debugging data is generated. The capture log technique involves storing the debugging data in memory buffers during normal…
Project Updates: January 2023
Happy New Year! Last month I described the early progress in building a 22-foot ceramic tile octopus sculpture that is destined for a commercial building complex in Morro Bay, California. The sculpture itself is now 95% complete, and all 405 of the WS2811 pixels have been mounted underneath the translucent glass “suckers”. The pixels and…
Project Updates: December 2022
As the new year approaches, I thought it would be a good time to provide an update on the projects I have underway, and some new ones that are just getting started. FidoLight I’m continuing to test the latest version of the 4-channel buck driver board for the RGBW FidoLight spot/flood light. I’ve started experimenting…
FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #7
One of my recent posts described the design details of the latest iteration of my 4-channel buck constant-current driver board that’s intended to be used with a high-power Cree XML RGBW module. As mentioned at the end of the post, I just received the bare PCB v5 boards from PCBWay, and the components from Digi-Key,…
Flex Controller
In a recent post I described my progress in developing a very compact RGBW floodlight that I plan to use for both art lighting and landscape lighting projects. I have an existing controller (the SLiC v2 board, described in this post) that is able to drive two of these “Fido” floodlights. But I challenged myself…
FidoLight RGBW Spotlight: Update #6
I set this project aside about a year ago, but now I have an actual application in mind and I’ve resumed work. Not exactly an art project – I plan to use them as accent lights surrounding a deck I’m building in the back yard. To save you the trouble of reading updates #1 through…
Gamma Correction for LED Lighting
Gamma correction, as applied to LED lighting, is a confusing and commonly-misunderstood topic. Proper application of gamma correction is important in achieving smooth brightness and color fades. Although there are a least a couple of articles out there that explain this concept and its application to LEDs (see links at the end of this post),…
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