Playing Youtube Videos At Incredibly Low Resolution On LEDs

March 10, 2021 by Lewin Day 14 Comments

Since the high-definition era, screens with many millions of pixels have become commonplace. Resolutions have soared into the stratosphere, and media has never looked clearer or crisper. However, [gatoninja236] decided to go the other way with this build – an LED matrix capable of playing Youtube videos.

The execution is simple. A Raspberry Pi 3, with the help of a Python script, downloads a Youtube video. It then runs this through OpenCV, which parses the video frames, downconverting them to suit a 64×64 pixel display. Then, it’s a simple matter of clocking out the data to the 64×64 RGB LED matrix attached to the Raspberry Pi’s IO pins, where the video is displayed in all its low-resolution glory.

Is it a particularly useful project? No. That doesn’t mean it’s not without value however; it teaches useful skills in both working with LED displays and video data scraped from the Internet. If you simply must have more pixels, though, this ping pong video wall might be more to your liking. Video after the break.

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One Ring Light To Fool Them All Into Thinking You’re Well-Rested

March 8, 2021 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

We know you’re beautiful, but maybe that cheap web camera from 2007 doesn’t always project your best image. Although web cameras are starting to come back down from the pandemic price gouging days, you could just build yourself a ring light and go from there, because better light may be all you need to look great.

Of course, this isn’t going to be cheaper than just buying a ring light, but if you already have a Circuit Playground and 3D printer lying around, you’re about halfway to owning one that’s much cooler than anything you can buy. The only other major hardware is the RGBW LED ring, the slide pots that adjust the light color, and the clicky little button that exits out of Zoom calls.

The business part is made to mount right over the camera, so the only part that has a footprint is the control box. No need to make space for a tripod or another boom. If you’re worried about staring into a bunch of lights, there’s a diffusing ring among the print files. We think this setup looks great, especially since [Southern Fried Science] built a light guide into the enclosure so those LED on the Circuit Playground don’t go to waste.

Do you just wish you had a more satisfying way to leave Zoom calls? If there’s a stud near your desk, it doesn’t get much more satisfying than a pull chain. If the only stud around is you, then use a giant mushroom button.

Via adafruit

Head Lamp Gives Glowing Creature Comforts

March 7, 2021 by Kristina Panos 5 Comments

What can we say? It’s 2021, and we could probably all use a psychotic glow worm lamp in our lives about now to lighten the mood and/or provide a new focal point for sitting and staring. Tired of dragging out that creepy little Elf on the Shelf every holiday season? [LiabilityLabs]’ Head Lamp is slightly less terrifying and far more functional. Really, the options are limitless.

The brain of this scare snake is an Electromage Pixelblaze LED controller, a powerful Wi-Fi enabled little board with a live web editor. [LiabilityLabs] recycled 20 milky plastic containers and their lids to help diffuse the light and avoid hot spots by holding the LED strip in the center of the tube. There’s a momentary button on the glowy guy’s tail that lets [LiabilityLabs] cycle through different color patterns with ease.

Whether you need a mascot for your stream channel, a confidant, or a refreshing rainbow rubber ducky of problem solving, Head Lamp is flexible. Feast your eyes on some brief animations after the break.

Want the glowies without the willies? This mesmerizing fiber optic lamp is an easy build.

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Elegant And Portable DIY Nightlight Becomes A Fixture For Hacker’s Kids

March 5, 2021 by Kristina Panos 11 Comments

When [itzikdiy]’s kids asked for a night light for their room, he got the bright idea to build something that straddles the line between portable and permanent. This fixture-less fixture plugs directly into a wall socket and is turned on and off with a handsome rocker switch on the bottom.

This lovely little lamp is mostly made from scrap — the oak on the front appears to have come from an old cabinet door, and the other two ring-shaped pieces are made from pine. [itzikdiy] even took the acrylic from broken panel lamps. Everything was cut with a Dremel and a circle-cutter attachment except the oak, which required a jigsaw. We think it looks great, especially with the different grain directions — call it art deco woodworking.

When it was all said and done, [itzikdiy] found it was too heavy to hang by the plug alone, so he added an L-shaped support beneath the power supply that holds it more evenly against the wall. [itzikdiy] also made a pair of hooks that snap into a pair of slots on the sides of the outlet itself. The solution is simple, sturdy, and effective without disrupting the lines of the lamp at all. Carve out a little bit of time to watch the build video after the break.

We know that someone of your hulking intelligence has no fear of the dark. But if you think you could use a nightlight in the bathroom for those 2 AM trips, look no further.

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An Homage To Daft Punk In Fan-Made Helmets Through The Years.

March 2, 2021 by Jenny List 32 Comments

It’s with sadness that we note the end to an end. The French dance music duo Daft Punk have split up, announced in a video that’s has already clocked 22 million views.The band have inspired hardware geeks across the world not just with their music but the way they present themselves. A perennial project has been to replicate in some way their iconic robot helmets.

Ben Heck's 2009 take on the helmet — Harrison Krix’s 2009 take on Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo’s helmet.

The artists themselves have been reticent about the exact technology that powers their headgear, but while this is a source of endless mystery and speculation to the music press it’s safe to assume from our perspective that their designers have the same parts at their disposal as we have. Microcontrollers, EL wire, and LEDs are universal, so the challenge lies in artistic expression with the helmet design rather than in making the effects themselves. We’ve reached into the archives for a bit of Daft Punk helmet nostalgia, so stick on Harder Better Faster and lets take a look at them, er, one more time.

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DIY All-Transistor Addressable Pixel

February 26, 2021 by Jenny List 36 Comments

By now most readers should be used to addressable LEDs, devices that when strung out in a connected chain can be individually lit or extinguished by a serial data stream. Should you peer at one under a microscope you’ll see alongside the LED dies an integrated circuit that handles all the address decoding. It’s likely to be quite a complex device, but how simply can its functions be replicated? It’s a theme [Tim] has explored in the TransistorPixel, and addressable LED board that achieves addressability with only 17 transistors.

It uses a surprisingly straightforward protocol, in which a pulse longer than 500ns enables the LED while a shorter one turns it off. Subsequent pulses in a train are passed on down the line to the next device. A 20µs absence of a pulse resets the string and sets it to wait for the next pulse train. Unlike the commercial addressable LEDS there is only a single colour and no suport for gradated brightness, but it’s still an impressive circuit.

Under the hood is some very old-school RTL logic, a monostable to detect the pulse and a selection of gates and a latch to capture the state and forward to the chain. It’s laid out on a PCB in order of circuit function, and while we can see that maybe it’s not a practical addresssable LED for 2021, it’s likely that it could be made into a much smaller PCB if desired.

Perhaps unsurprisingly given the ready availability of addressable LEDs, we’ve not seen many home made ones. This addressable 7-segment display may be the closest.

“MORPH” LED Ball Is A There-Is-No-Spoon, Reality-Bending Art Installation

February 25, 2021 by Mike Szczys 16 Comments

Marvelously conceived and exquisitely executed, this huge ball made up of hexagon tiles combines the best of blinky LEDs and animatronics into one amorphic ball.

The creation of [Nicholas Perillo] of Augmentl along with [MindBuffer], full details of the “morph v2” project have not yet been published. However, some tantilizing build progress is documented on [Nicholas’] Insta — most especially through the snapshots in the story thread spanning the last seven months. The scope of the project is brought into focus with time lapse video of hundreds of heat-set inserts, bundles of twisted wire, a pile of 1500 sliding rails, cases full of custom-order stepper motors, and thick cuts of copper bus bars to feed power up the shaft and out to the panels.

The demo video after the break is mesmerizing, shot by [nburdy] during a demo at MotionLab Berlin where it was built. Each hex tile is backed by numerous LEDs and a stepper motor assembly that lets it move in and out from the center of the ball. Somehow it manages to look as though it’s flowing, as they eye doesn’t pick up spaces opening between tiles as they are extended.

The Twitter thread fills in some of the juicy details: “486 stepper motors, 86,000 LEDs and a 5 channel granular synth engine (written by @_hobson_ no less, in @rustlang of course).” The build also includes speakers mounted in the core of the ball, hidden behind the moving LED hexes. The result is an artistic assault on reality, as the highly coordinated combinations of light, sound, and motion make this feel alive, otherwordly, or simply a glitch in the matrix. Watching the renders of what animations will look like, then seeing it on the real thing drives home the point that practical effects can still snap us out of our 21st-century computer-generated graphics trance.

It’s relatively easy to throw thousands of LEDs into a project these days, as PCBA just applies robots to the manufacturing problem. But motion remains a huge challenge beyond a handful of moving parts. But the Times Square billboard from a few years ago and the Morph ball both show it’s worth it.

As you’ve guessed from the name, this is the second Morph ball the team has collaborated on. Check out details of v1, a beach ball sized moving LED ball.

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