In May of this year, [Erich Styger] shows his project called “60 Billion Lights” off to the world. Now he has published an update on the making of this impressive work of art. As a quick recap, “60 Billion Lights” is a canvas art piece, which has 60 dual shaft stepper motors integrated into it. Each stepper motor has forty 24-bit RGB LEDs, making for a total of 60 billion position and light combinations on the entire canvas.
With the dual shaft stepper motors, one can control the position of laser-cut acrylic rods inside each of the forty depressions that make up a unit. Each unit has its WS2812B LEDs positioned around the inside edge.
As the embedded video (after the break) shows, it can be used to create a wide variety of effects. The whole of it is driven by 15 controller boards that run FreeRTOS on an NXP LPC845 (Cortex-M0+), connected via RS-485.
In the ‘Making Of’ video (embedded after the break) and article, more details are shown of the individual components, including the dual shaft stepper motors, stepper motor PCBs, the LED ring PCBs, and countless images of the construction, painting and assembly.
If the original article gave one the impression that this was an easy project, it is this behind the scenes look that gives one a good impression of the full scale. From the countless PCBs, controller boards, wiring, programming to the assembly and testing. Not to mention the painting of the canvas itself, which is an original work.
??
A FHD display has 35 trillion lights, and the images are more precisely reproduced.
1920 * 1080 * 256 * 256 * 256 = 3.47892351E+13.
Yeah, couple that with my ∞ x ∞ pixels analog plotter and we have winning combo.
Art isn’t about reproducing images accurately this is art instalation.
No, but it’s the idiotic naming scheme he was commenting on. He didn’t say it’s not art. Just an ignorant name.
Also, it may be art but that paint scheme makes it one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. Of course, art being art, that may well be the “artist’s” intent.
It’s obviously a syntactic deconstructionist play on a post-post-modern representation of the famous KOBE cosmic background image re-imagined as a Karmic background full of dark shadows and chaos, as a counterpoint to the lights that represent the hope of humanity finding it’s place in the universe both spiritually and physically.
*COBE dammit, that Kobe character being in the headlines a couple of years back musta ruined me.
Best comment yet!!
🤣
24 positions (first shaft) * 3 (no, one or both ends of long shaft lit) * 24 positions (second shaft in 23 remaining positions or unlit=+1) * (2^24)-1 light colours * 60 displays = 1.7*10^12 or 1billion (long scale)/trillion(short) possible combinations.
I think this project would have been better received without the distracting paint. One solid color would have been preferred, Use the individually addressable RGB’s to create the color you want.
I agree, I think the paint ruins it.
You don’t know his story, maybe he was all ready to give it a few good smooth coats, then his dog drank the paint and Jackson Pollacked it all up again.
*Pollocked … did anyone else know it was national no-spelling day or am I on my own here?
Maybe you meant this! 😂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Mind_the_Bollocks,_Here%27s_the_Sex_Pistols
Prior art, Black and white, 7 years ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdaKTnqotbE
RPI controlled
Could a done it with one 36 bit LED.
Just don’t call it a clock, though… am I right?
It’s an “art” clock … which doesn’t tell time.