• Lightning Bugs

    robbie nichols • 04/09/2016 at 03:12 • 0 comments

    Today I cleaned up some of my code to make it easier to add animations to the library. I haven't tested it yet, so it might all fail miserably. I couldn't find much info about the flashes that fireflies make for this animation. Here is the best info I found: https://legacy.mos.org/fireflywatch/virtual_habitat. It basically says that the color, duration, number of flashes, and interval all vary.

  • Hardware Install

    robbie nichols • 04/08/2016 at 00:47 • 0 comments

    The example installation is close enough to call it complete. The Controls and power supply are in place in a little box I made out of plywood. The lights are installed under the top bunk and the light diffuser is installed. That was a simple rectangle frame I made out of plywood with a sheet stretched over it and stapled upholstery style.

    These are the things that I have left to do:

    • remove the duct tape that fell off that is currently under the diffuser.
    • replace the arduino uno with an arduino pro mini.

    I made a few mistakes along the way:

    • stretched the sheet too tight in the middle of my rectangle frame. It is slightly concave. You can probably see it in the video above.
    • taped the ends of my LED strips to add some more support. Now that the tape has fallen off, I have to remove it.
    • I split some wood in the control box, and the plywood was slightly bowed before I put it together. It all still works fine, but next time I will use a drill before I screw it in (I usually don't cut that corner) and I'll start with wood that isn't bowed.

    Diffuser frame with sheet:

    LEDs without the diffuser: