How To Control The Lights With A TV Remote

February 16, 2018 by Lewin Day 16 Comments

In this day and age of the Internet of Things and controlling appliances over the internet, the idea of using an old-fashioned television remote to do anything feels distinctly 2005. That doesn’t mean it’s not a valid way to control the lights at home, and [Atakan] is here to show us how it’s done.

To the experienced electronics maker, this is yesterday’s jam, but [Atakan] goes to great lengths to hash out the whole process from start to finish, from building the circuitry to switch the lights through to the code necessary to make a PIC do your bidding. It’s rare to see such a project done with a non-Arduino platform, but rest assured, such things do exist. There’s even some SPICE simulation thrown in for good measure, if you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty.

Perhaps the only thing missing from the writeup is a primer on how to execute the project safely, given that it’s used with a direct connection to live mains wiring. We’d love to hear in the comments about any changes or modifications that would be necessary to ensure this project doesn’t hurt anyone or burn an apartment complex down. Sometimes you can switch lights without a direct connection to the mains, however – like this project that interfaces mechanically with a standard light switch.

ESP32 Makes Not-So-Smart Lights Smart

January 11, 2018 by Will Sweatman 24 Comments

Long taken for granted – lights are a basic necessity of modern life. From the time of the first light bulb, we’ve been able to navigate the dark without the use of fire. With the advent of the Internet of Things, it has become somewhat of a requirement to bring a little intelligence to lights before labeling yourself as a hardware hacker. There are many ways to do this; one of the most common being making use of an ESP32. [Luca Dentella] is somewhat of an ESP32 expert, and has written a fantastic tutorial on how to use the chip. The tutorial builds up to making a set of lights controllable from a smartphone web browser as well a light intensity sensor.

Now before you brush this off as simple n0Ob stuff – consider the following. He’s using a Lolin32 lite dev board, a BH1750 light intensity sensor and a relay to interface with mains for the lights. He wrote his own firmware and gets into the gritty details of developing the HTTP interface and flashing code to the correct memory.

We’ve seen a lot of ESP32 projects here at Hackaday, including this most interesting clock. Be sure to check out the video below to see the smart lights in action.

Continue reading “ESP32 Makes Not-So-Smart Lights Smart” →

Aluminum Foil Heatsink Keeps LEDs In Check

December 20, 2017 by Tom Nardi 24 Comments

In your kitchen is very likely a roll of aluminum foil, like most people you probably use it to line pans or wrap food for baking. If you heard somebody used aluminum foil in the cooling of items, you could be forgiven for thinking they were referring to wrapping leftovers and tossing them in the refrigerator. But rather than preserving Mom’s famous meatloaf, [Michael Dunn] is using that classic kitchen staple to protect his LED strips.

Cheap LED strips are becoming extremely popular and have been popping up in more and more projects, but they have a pretty serious flaw: heat dissipation. Left on their own they can get hot enough to cook themselves, which is sort of a problem when you’re looking to replace as much of your home lighting with them like [Michael] is.

Heat was of particular concern as he was looking to retrofit a delicate shade with his beloved LED strips. Since he wanted a column of LEDs inside the unique shape of the shade, he reasoned that some kind of heat-conductive tubular structure could be used as both a mandrel to wrap the LEDs around and a way to dissipate heat. Like most of us, his first thought was copper pipe. But unfortunately the only copper pipe he had handy was of too small a diameter.

The tube of foil on the other hand was the perfect diameter, and while aluminum isn’t as good a conductor of heat as copper, it’s certainly no slouch either. Early tests weren’t that great when the tube was laying on the bench, but once it stood vertically convection got the air moving and cooled the LEDs down to where [Michael] was comfortable enough to put them inside the shade. Though he does have some lingering doubts about leaving the cardboard tube in such a toasty environment.

Going back through the archives, we’ve seen some absolutely fantastic projects utilizing LED strips in the past, some of which have come up with their own creative ways of beating the heat.

Resurrecting Dead LED Lightbulbs

December 19, 2017 by Tom Nardi 29 Comments

If you’ve gone down the lighting isle of a store recently, you’ve no doubt noticed we are firmly in the age of the LED light bulb. Incandescent bulbs are kept in small stock for those who still have the odd-ball use case, there’s usually a handful of CFL bulbs for those who don’t mind filling their house with explosive vials of hot mercury, but mostly its all LED now. Which is as it should be: LED lighting is clearly the superior choice in terms of energy efficiency, lifetime, and environmental impact.

Unfortunately, a lot of the LED bulbs you’ll see on the rack are of pretty poor quality. In an effort to drive cost down corners get cut, and bulbs which should run for decades end up blowing after a couple of months. After yet another one failed on him, [Kerry Wong] decided to do a teardown to examine the failure in detail.

He notes that most of the LEDs seem to fail in the same way, flickering after they are switched on until they just stop lighting up entirely. This hints at an overheating issue, and [Kerry] opines that aesthetic and cost considerations have pushed heat dissipation to the back burner in terms of design. It also doesn’t help that many of these bulbs are sitting in insulated recessed fixtures in the ceiling, making it even harder to keep them cool.

Once he separates the actual LEDs from the driver circuitry, he is able to determine that the emitters themselves still work fine. Rather than toss the whole thing in the trash, it’s possible to reuse the LEDs with a new power source, which is quickly demonstrated by showing off a shop light he built from “dead” LED light bulbs.

[Kerry Wong] isn’t the only one to put his LED bulbs under the knife. We’ve covered a number of teardowns which explore the cutting edge of home lighting; for better or for worse.

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Rocking Playmobil Wedding

October 4, 2017 by Brian McEvoy 6 Comments

Many of us have put our making/hacking/building skills to use as a favor for our friends and family. [Boris Werner] is no different, he set about creating a music festival stage with Playmobil figures and parts for a couple of friends who were getting married. The miniature performers are 1/24 scale models of the forming family. The bride and groom are on guitar and vocals while junior drums.

Turning children’s toys into a wedding-worthy gift isn’t easy but the level of detail [Boris Werner] used is something we can all learn from. The video after the break does a great job of showing just how many cool synchronized lighting features can be crammed into a tiny stage in the flavor of a real show and often using genuine Playmobil parts. Automation was a mix of MOSFET controlled LEDs for the stage lighting, addressable light rings behind the curtain, a disco ball with a stepper motor and music, all controlled by an Arduino.

Unless you are some kind of Playmobil purist, this is way cooler than anything straight out of the box. This is the first mention of Playmobil on Hackaday but miniatures are hardly a new subject like this similarly scaled space sedan.

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Friday Hack Chat: All About LED Design

September 27, 2017 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

There are three great enabling technologies of the last twenty years. The first is lithium batteries that hold a lot of juice. Quadcopters wouldn’t exist without them, and the Tesla Model S wouldn’t either. The second is crazy powerful brushless motors. Here, again, quads wouldn’t exist without them, but we’re also getting smaller, torquier, and more powerful motion platforms.

The third great enabling technology in recent memory is LEDs. Remember when the PlayStation 2 came out, and everyone was amazed by the blue LED? That blue LED won a Nobel Prize. Now, we have LED light bulbs, LEDs in any color of the rainbow, powerful UV LEDs, and bazillion candela flashlights. LEDs are awesome.

For this week’s Hack Chat, we’re going to be talking all about LEDs. Everything from strips to rings, discrete to waterproof, COBs, weird colors, and everything in between. If you’re looking to replace your workshop lighting with LEDs, this is the Hack Chat for you. If you’ve ever wondered about the quality of LEDs, and the price-performance ratio, this is for you. This is all about blinky bling.

Our guest for this week’s Hack Chat will be [Metalnat], founder of the Burbank MakerSpace, a recent resident of the Supplyframe DesignLab where he designed a VR controller, and worked on Crane, a flapping automaton that glided over the playa at this year’s Burning Man. During this Hack Chat, we’ll be talking about LEDs, including installation methods, types of LEDs, suppliers, and LED manufacturing methods.

This is a Hack Chat, so we’re taking questions from the audience. Here’s a spreadsheet we’ll be using to guide the discussion.

Here’s How To Take Part:

Our Hack Chats are live community events on the Hackaday.io Hack Chat group messaging. This Hack Chat will be going down noon, Pacific time on Friday, September 29th. Sidereal and solar getting you down? Wondering when noon is this month? Not a problem: here’s a handy countdown timer!

Click that speech bubble to the right, and you’ll be taken directly to the Hack Chat group on Hackaday.io.

You don’t have to wait until Friday; join whenever you want and you can see what the community is talking about.

An Enchanted Rose For A Beauty

June 27, 2017 by James Hobson 11 Comments

Being a maker opens up so many doors in terms of ways to romance one’s partner through passion projects. If their passion is Disney films, then you may handily make them the enchanted rose from Beauty and the Beast for their birthday. Easy-peasy.

In addition to the love and care that went into this build, redditor [Vonblackhawk2811] has included a set of LEDs, salvaged from cheap flashlights and electronic candles, which are controlled by four toggle switches and offer multiple lighting selections — candlelight, soft white, colour cycling, and bright white — to appropriately set the mood. As if that wasn’t enough to romance his sweetheart, he’s also included an aux cord input and a pair of speakers so they may be serenaded by a tune or two as they dance the night away.

Liberal use of hot glue and duct tape are keeping the electronics secured, preventing any shorts. After all — what would it say if this gift went up in flames? An inspired stencil design — hand drawn and cut out — was used to apply a spray-on frosted glass finish to the cloche, and a romantic phrase was burned into the base, completing this heartfelt gift. The only quibble we have is that now we all have to step up our game in the courtship department.

That is, unless one is sporting the Romance Pants.

[via /r/DIY]