[SkyWodd] took the easy route when it came time to build this light painting bar. But he was still met with great success. Thanks to his well-documented work you should be able to throw this together for yourself in about an hour.
The idea here is to build a full-color display that will draw a picture in a long-exposure photograph. We’ve seen the concept used with 64 discrete RGB LEDs, but there’s almost no soldering to be done with this project. Instead, [SkyWodd] used an addressable RGB LED strip. It has 64 pixels, all taking commands via the SPI protocol. This helps keep the number of microcontroller connections to a minimum. He lashed the entire system onto a long hunk of wooden dowel and grabbed a camera.
You’ll need a DSLR as each image needs to have an exposure time approaching 10 seconds. One thing to note is that it may be best to leave the LED bar stationary and move the camera. If you use a tripod it should help keep the vibrations to a minimum.
Small thing: you won’t neccessarily need a DSLR. Many, many point and shoots can do over 10 second exposures. Noticed, you said something similar last time you posted about a DSLR build.
Yes, or we can use a cheap Canon camera with CHDK.
Never seen before, except for HaD: LightScythe was also using LED strips
http://hackaday.com/2011/06/28/giant-pov-tube-for-light-painting/
Am I missing something? You say his build is well documented and simple, but the only link in the article goes to a previous hackaday post? Is there a link to his work somewhere?
Link fail!
http://skyduino.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/arduino-light-painting-assiste-par-ordinateur-version-2/
here is the link not translated though. in espanol.
French, not Spanish…
Wait, it says it’s best to keep the bar stationary but move the camera? But then have a tripod to keep the vibrations to a minimum on the camera? Me momo confused…
Pan and tilt…. mostly pan. The tripod avoids shaking the camera and allowing a smooth pan operation.
Here’s a translation link:
Googled version
Question about these builds in general. How does the bar know when to change the color of the pixels?
Hi Dr.DFTBA,
Typically just based on timing. I made a similar WiFi version (using a TL-WR703N router) just last week but haven’t gotten around to writing it up :
Some pics of my version
https://picasaweb.google.com/114506261366431391535/BitBltBlade?authuser=0&feat=directlink
That light bar is most likely based on the work of Matt ‘Arctfox’ Pandina. He wrote ‘Demystifying the TLC5940’.
Arctfox’s build looks much better and he wrote an entire book on the subject.
https://sites.google.com/site/artcfox/demystifying-the-tlc5940
I wrote some posts on using Matt’s library on an Arduino that might be useful, starting here:
http://sweetlilmre.blogspot.com/2012/02/artcfoxs-awesome-tlc5940-and-arduino.html
If you like light painting, Ellie Goulding’s ‘lights’ video is pretty much the best light painting I’ve ever seen