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Kaleidoscope

A project log for Kaleidoscope

A plant-like sculpture made from RGB LEDs, Warm White LEDs, and current limiting resistors.

eddieEddie 03/24/2022 at 16:440 Comments

Now that I knew I could achieve a small version of my idea it was time to start on the large-scale version.

For this version, I hired an assistant to help prep the wires and make the orbs.  The total time spent between us was around 90 hours.

Some progress shots are below.

Most of the orbs waiting for resistors to be soldered on

The first step was to create the diffusers for the LEDs. I went with a mixture of RGB and RGB/Warm White orbs.
Resistors soldered on

After making the orbs we started attaching resistors. I made a really simple algorithm for assigning resistor values to LEDs.  I didn't want it to be too random so we stuck in groupings of six values or so per channel.  We only used the green and blue channels of the RGB LEDs.
Process for attaching magnet wire. Sticky tack is the best.

Next, we Attached the magnet wire lets to the clustered + and - legs.
Anchors attached to wood.

20 AWG magnet wire to support the orbs.
All orbs attached. Time to solder.

This took us about an hour to do.  The only criteria was to keep large orbs away from each other.
First time powering on.

We missed a few clusters but they all got sorted in the end. Even though I tested as I went I was still very nervous for the first complete power-up.

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