The Majesty Of Saturn’s Rings Lighting Your Abode

[Modustrial Maker] is at it again with another seriously cool LED visualizer. This time around, he’s built pair of pendant lights inspired by the rings of Saturn.

The rings are made mostly of walnut plywood using a circle router jig to make the cut easier. If you are inspired to make these for yourself, [Modustrial Maker] is clear — the order in which you cut out the pieces of the rings is absolutely critical. The pieces are glued together — with any edges sanded smooth — and edgebanding applied using a hot air gun due to the curved surface before staining. Duplicate for the second (or more if you so choose!) rings. Be forewarned — a little geometry will be needed to find anchor points that will keep the rings properly balanced.

[Modustrial Maker] suggests an off-the shelf LED controller to handle the visualizations and lighting effects, but he used an Arduino Mega clone as the brains — code available here, a MonkeyJack MAX9814 electret mic, and a four-channel RF remote/transceiver to control the different modes. Pulsing along to the music, these rings make for sleek lighting indeed.

Link this pendant light to a radio telescope, and you might be able to achieve a real-time visualization of the radio emissions from Saturn itself!

[Thanks for the tip, Itay!]

4 thoughts on “The Majesty Of Saturn’s Rings Lighting Your Abode

  1. I love the build. I really like the woodworking and electronics blend and that you spent a lot of time on the woodworking aspect because the LEDs are much more understood. This inspired me to write my first post on Hackaday. Nice Job.

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