[Crenn] obtained a string of official companion cube lights from Valve, but being in Australia couldn’t put them to their non-judgemental glory without the use of a step down transformer. They sat on the workbench for a few months until an idea was hatched: replace the bulbs with an Adafruit Neopixel strip, making these wonderful inanimate friends a string of individually addressable RGB LEDs.
The process of converting these cubes required stuffing a very small 9.4mm PCB inside. This PCB was designed in KiCAD thanks to a few classes at the Melbourne hackerspace. The board files were sent off, PCBs received, soldered up, and stuffed into the cubes.
Control is via a Duemilanove with a single IO pin using the Neopixel library. All the code, board files, and schematics are available on the gits. Future improvements might include a 3D printed cable relief and a way to securely mount the PCBs to the inside of the cubes.
Video available below.
Step-down? I thought Australia was 240V??
Australia is 240v, however the original lights are rated for 110/120v. I suspect that if Valve wanted to make Australian lights, there would be 20 cubes; reason being that each bulb is rated for 12v.
im guessing Austrailians hate incandescant bulbs,
esp. when they are run on a transformer/powersupply…
it’s hot enough down there, they dont need a heater!