Here's the latest LED thing I'm working on (the design isn't mine): https://immich.home.stavros.io/share/oXerU8gnLn-dNHunPOg8lM8...
Jokes aside this is super cool. I always find LED panels really interesting to look at under the hood. I’m so picky about the ones I like to use almost purely based on vibes when filming. They’re just one of those things that you immediately know you’re going to love or hate in post the moment they hit your subject
My next LED cube project will be oriented towards trying to do that.
https://www.codrey.com/electronics/the-led-photodiode-trick/
This is also in my "TODO" list, maybe with the next magicShifter revision, or possible once I get the current new design booted and refactored, a bit ..
What kind of thing would you want to make with LEDs as inputs?
(hoping I have seeded this idea, so I'm not the first one to attempt this)
OO OOOO OO
OO OOOO OO
OO OOOO OO
O OOOOOO O
O OOOOOO O
O OOOOOO O
OOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOO
My intuition is that there would be pain in 3d printing a diffusion structure because slicers etc. would not be optimised for producing a homogenous solid. I would guess that 100% infill is actually something like 99.98% with tiny voids that stick out like a sore thumb when you shine a light through. I might be wrong about that, I'm not a 3d printing expert.
The principle of reshaping I think is awesome though. It might just be an issue of modulating brightness to counter any uneven distribution. It's got me thinking about a Faceted approach. 3d Print a faceted basin and then print a thin edge divider to sit in it. Fill it with something that sets solidly enough and makes a good diffuser (this too sounds like a war with bubbles). Take it out of the basin when set and you potentially have a nice faceted surface with each facet individually colourable.
https://www.fluorolite.com/buy-now/f12-100-2347flatsheet/
for a cheap test, put wax paper between two grids/grilles and see how it looks (ie: double-diffusion). ie: [ LED | <grid> | <wax paper> | <grid> | <wax paper> ]
...the first grid isolates the color, the first wax paper diffuses the LED, the second grid "receives" the isolated color (diffused, not spot/point) which then gets finally diffused for viewing.
Surely you can look up how to avoid bubbles on a semi-transparent resin pour.
I know how that's done (usually a combination of careful stirring and a vacuum chamber). The principle is easier than the practice. I am dispraxic and generally shouldn't be allowed near physical objects, but I like them so.
https://blenderartists.org/t/how-do-i-put-a-soft-glowing-led...
...all the joy of creation with none of the cost or danger of losing fingertips! :-P
The WS2812s here all connect to each other in series, so if you cut the board down, you'll have to replace the cut connections with bodge wires. To my mind, that plus the cutting is way more work than just making a PCB in exactly the shape you want.
You can get cheap PCBs for $5-$6 for qty 5 100mm x 100mm boards delivered to your door in the US. Add on LEDs at $0.03 to $0.05 each and I'd way rather make than modify here.
.. and, I recycled some old scoreboard display panels to make something similar to your latest project, also:
About the panels: https://metalab.at/wiki/Blinkofant/LED-Display_History
The Blinkophant: https://i.imgur.com/3aPytEp.jpeg
Thanks for checking out the magicShifter3000!
I've got a new one designed, currently in prototyping stages .. a bit more powerful and a lot more oriented towards audio/synthesis. Same form-factor, and probably MS3000 and midiShifter will have an ecosystem ..
Also, a few friends and I have a maker Discord server and you'd fit right in, I can send an invitation if you like! My email is in my profile.
But yeah, we'll probably reboot magicShifter soon ..
We devoured the panels and did all kinds of funky things with them.
https://www.stavros.io/posts/behold-ledonardo/
I would really like to make it work with an accelerometer, as right now it's a bit fiddly to get the right speed for images, but I don't know if I can make it work.
This means you can basically use the magicshifter3000 as a knob. Or, a slider.
Its very fun with MIDI.
:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syP8_lccIQA
:)
Then again, the right ones light up more than the left ones, so I think you're tapping on the right edge of the desk. Very cool!
(This was some years back, note.)
I keep meaning to design some PCBs with them [1] but it's too far down my ever-growing list of projects to see the light of day...
I'm feeling safer already. sigh.
Looks like a fun site though, I'll take a look when I'm not on my work computer.
For those 1mm addressable RGB LEDs I've been thinking how you could do cool cyberpunk looks by stringing them on some hairthin magnet wire and sticking them on your body/face/hair/etc. Blend them in with some latex or something if needed. Just need to hide the controller/battery somewhere.
I still haven't decided if I want to have a partition grid between the panel and the diffuser to make square edge pixels. It's definitely going to have a rp2350 inside. PIO is the best thing ever.
LED get freaking hot fast at higher wattages and quickly found myself dealing with heat sinks etc.
Think the LEDs I had were pretty crappy though, so they probably produced more heat per unit of light than they should
i.e. was more brute force than colour & control
Thinking more, if there were only 4 LEDs I can imagine how they would look like diffused.
Initially I was thinking if 8x8 can show all those smooth details and motions, can it be used to show any other higher resolution imagery instead of just moving colours.
It's much easier to understand when you can change the distance of the diffuser to the panel (which I did when testing), because then you can see the lights go from little squares with lots of dark space around them, to this, to big blobs of one color.
I don't think you can exploit that to show something higher resolution than the original pixel array,
I have to resist the urge to tile every surface with blinky lights. I think part of the appeal goes back to why I enjoyed writing programs on my C64 to bounce my name around the screen. It’s a limited playground, and limitations inspire creativity.
> a two-layer white square out of PLA
OLED screens do not have a backlight and thus don't have a diffuser.
But apparently, LEDs require advanced processes unlikely to be available for makers, anytime in the near future.
However, Zinc sulfide phosphor mixed into epoxy can be used to make voltage activated luminescence. For some interesting guidance on "doping" for color, I present a 1953 patent:
> zinc" sulphide' activated by both copper ad manganese in accordance, with the present invention is strongly electroluminescent, the addition of. manganese to the copper-activated material resulting in a shift in the color of luminescence toward the red end of the spectrum. Thus, the materials of the invention, when excited by a fluctuating electric field, show colors of luminescence ranging from bluish-green through shades of bluish-white, pinkish-white and yellow to orange. [0]
Looks like some level of RGB was possible from the get go.
Doping of course can change that.
May require 100+ V AC at 500-2000 Hz. So probably not the right element to implement 4k in! Or for an early education science experiment, unfortunately.
I don't know what the currents would be, proportions or dimensions of epoxy, or much else. Some more research would be required. But in terms of resistive heating creating gas: measure and be careful!
mytailorisrich•4mo ago
stavros•3mo ago