Maybe you do it out of respect for the dogs and parents of young children in the neighborhood. Or maybe you do it because they’re harmful to the environment, or just because it’s too darn cold outside. Whatever your reasoning for not setting off fireworks, don’t fret — you can probably put together your own silent one-dimensional “fireworks” display from what you’ve got in the parts bin.
[Daniel Westhof]’s design is simple, requiring little more than a Wemos D1 Mini and a strip of WS2812 LEDs. Once activated, a red rocket shoots up from the ground and detonates, sending lights in both directions on the strip to imitate the bombs bursting in air. It’s controlled with a small push button switch, and there’s a deliciously large red LED indicator that shows the thing is ready for detonation.
You might be surprised to find that there’s a wide array of 1D gaming and animation projects out there, many of which made possible by the ubiquitous addressable RGB LED strip. We’ve seen a dungeon crawler, at least two different versions of the classic PONG, and even the makings of a simplified Wolfenstein.
Hah, like it ;-)
now attach a few dozen such led strips to powerful drones and simulate several different explosions in 3D :-)
It might be a little less quiet :)
Let it rotate with a brusshles motor around his own axis parallel to a mirror to produce a display.
This German maker has built a tree like installation with a 3m radius, similar to what you suggest. Met him on a maker fair once.
The effect looks pretty nice in my opinion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8agckzWPbJc&t=90
Here you can see it a little bit better, but unfortunately hosted on Instagram/Meta: https://www.picuki.com/media/3013510114758182361
Very nice!
The LEDs are apparently MIDI controlled. Maybe WLED could be used instead?
This looks great. I’d love to see the effect added to WLED which already has many similar 1D and 2D effects.
Cool effect, would be much nicer with the “rocket” going up and having multiple more leds to handle the “explosion”.
Not too bad, but…
The controller isn’t the issue, the issue is powering it, especially outside.
And also the last few years it frequently rains on new year so LED would have to be waterproof too, as does the power delivery setup.
This is a very cool build.
Powering it should be pretty easy. I would imagine the power requirements are pretty light, since it would probably fine with a 5m roll of LEDs and what…. 6-10A should be more than enough I would think depending on the length of strip you’re using. Might even be able to get away with less amperage since not all the LEDs are on at once, or bright white.
A strip with the right IP rating should be fine in rain and making sure the PSU doesn’t get wet is straightforward enough.
I badly misjudged the calculations for the current draw.
I’ve only really dealt with small lengths (1 or 2 metre sections before), so my calcs were way off.
It should be 3 times my estimate for a 5m strip. More like 18-20A.
https://code.whatever.social/exchange/electronics/questions/496840/how-much-current-for-a-5v-60-led-m-ws2812b-5m-led-strip. And this one:
https://www.temposlighting.com/guides/power-any-ws2812b-setup
Useful info.
“making sure the PSU doesn’t get wet is straightforward enough.”
Is it? I mean it has to be cooled with a fan usually to mention one thing.
Oh come to think of it, if it’s attached to the house you could keep the PSU inside and just wire the low power wire out, in a waterproof manner, but that simplifies things a bit, but it still means you need to be near the house, but for such ‘fireworks’ that is anyway best really, and in certain parts of the world/US it also helps prevent fire and allows for ‘fireworks’ where they had to outlaw it due to fire risk.
My point is not to nullify the project, I was merely pointing out that in my experience the power requirement are a pesky reality with the addressable RGB LED. beyond a certain length/number. It vexes me personally.
Perhaps we should have a RGB LED library for arduino that specifically keep the number of simultaneously lit LED below a specified number, either by limiting them in number of by rapid blinking.
That way you would not need to do the heavy lifitng of keeping thing in control and making sure you don’t mess up.
Just run some beefy conductors along the length of the led strips to tie power in at a few points along the way and at the other end.
I posted below and then I remembered that I did an instructable that showed the math and then the reality. Since then I have replaced those with strips that have twice the number of LEDs (can’t remember which flavor).
Your first set of numbers weren’t necessarily wrong. WS2812https://www.instructables.com/WS2812-LED-Implementation/
Above. Below. Typos! https://www.instructables.com/WS2812-LED-Implementation/
I build this.
It is just powered by a 3A USB charger. That’s plenty of power, because only a few of the LEDs are lit at all times. And when there are most LEDs lit, its mostly one color.
I used it multiple times in the rain and it wasn’t a problem. It has to be dried immediately the next day though.
Technically it’s not 1D. :) It makes use of height, time and lightintensity, so is still 3D. :D
Technically, my 3D Tempest kinda game is just ONE strip (curled). The arduino signal is connected to the bottom of the strip and comes from one pinout only. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94_hc6Zyjpo .