LED technology has come a long way in the past few decades. One of LED's greatest achievements was the invention of the blue LED. Soon after he appeared RGB LED. And now you can create almost any color imaginable.
RGB LEDs are found in many lights used in photo and video production. But have you ever thought about making your own? Instructables user tobychui shared his plans so we can create our own.
DIY RGB LED lights
One of the big advantages of RGB LED lighting is that it often doesn't have to be very precise. Sure, in certain situations you might want to match another light source, but most of the time this isn't the case.
It just needs to look close enough to the desired color (red, blue, etc.) to sell the effect you want on camera. This is lucky because most LED modules, especially his RGB modules, are not very accurate.
Tobychui's design is centered around the WS2812B LED module. These are 5v modules that contain individual red, green and blue LEDs along with the chip. This chip allows these LED modules to be addressed individually.
This allows you to turn individual LEDs on or off and set each LED to your desired color. Everything is controlled using an ESP8266 on a custom PCB designed by tobychui. The back houses the ESP32, buttons for configuring the lights, and various other components.
There is space in the front for a WS2812b LED module. There are a total of 49 spaces for LED modules, resulting in a 7×7 square grid.
The ESP8266 microcontroller not only acts as the brain of the whole thing, but also provides WiFi and Bluetooth functionality. So you can easily control your LED lights remotely from your smartphone browser by simply logging onto your WiFi network.
what do you need?
This is a very simple hardware list. And you have several options. If you need an RGB LED strip, just buy a Wemos D1 Mini, a USB power bank, and a WS2812b LED strip. However, if you want to use an actual panel, you will need to create a PCB.
There are several companies that offer PCB manufacturing. Personally he prefers JLCPCB, but there are other companies as well. Just download the file and send. The list of other components other than PCB is as follows:
Excluding the shipping cost of the PCB, each LED light can cost less than $5 if you shop smart, buy in bulk, and assemble a few. Buying 5,000 WS2812b LEDs once is much cheaper than buying 50 LEDs 100 times (and probably cheaper than buying 50 LEDs 10 times).
Be sure to check out the complete build log on Instructables to download the schematic, code, and 3D printable model.
Previously, we showed you some other ways to build LED panels and LED tubes in DIYP. So if you haven't decided yet which light to make, be sure to check it out.
[via Hackaday]