Most solar lights are cheap garbage that exist just to put more microplastics into the environment as they degrade in short order. [Jeremy Cook] built his own solar light, however, and this one might just last a little longer. Most solar lights rely on the cheapest nickel-cadmium or nickel-metal hydride cells that are available on […]
When it comes to electromagnetic waves, humans can really only directly perceive a very small part of the overall spectrum, which we call “visible light.” [rootkid] recently built an art piece that has perception far outside this range, turning invisible waves into a visible light sculpture. The core of the device is the HackRF One. […]
[Brainiac75] is a fan of fiber optic lamps, except for one thing—they’re often remarkably dim. Thus, they set out to hack the technology to deliver terrifying amounts of light while still retaining their quirky charm. Older fiber optic lamps use a dim filament lamp or halogen lamp to light them up. They also often feature […]
[Geeksmithing] and [When Geeks Craft] recently came together for a glowing collaboration. They wanted to build ever more attractive lanterns for a local parade event. They recently discovered a fantastic material that can really improve the look of whatever project you might be building with LEDs. The material is commonly referred to as “Black LED […]
LED bezels (also known as LED panel-mount holders) are great, so how about 3D printing the next ones you need? Sure, they’re inexpensive to purchase and not exactly uncommon. But we all know that when working on a project, one doesn’t always have everything one might need right at hand. At times like that, 3D […]
Visualizers used to be very much in vogue, something you’d gasp in at amazement when you’d fire up Winamp or Windows Media Player. They’re largely absent from our modern lives, but [Arnov Sharma] is bringing them back. After all, who doesn’t want a cool visualizer hanging on the wall in their living room? The build […]
Typically, lamps provide a stationary source of light to illuminate a given area and help us see what we’re doing. However, they can also be a little more artistic and eye-catching, like this windmill lamp from [Huy Vector]. It’s somewhat of a charming desk toy, constructed out of copper wire soldered into the form of […]
Hopscotch is a game usually played with painted lines or with the aid of a bit of chalk. However, if you desire fancier equipment, you might like the interactive hopscotch setup from [epatell]. The build uses yoga mats as the raw material to create each individual square of the hopscotch board. The squares all feature […]
Neopixels and other forms of addressable LEDs have taken the maker world by storm. They make it trivial to add a ton of controllable, glowing LEDs to any project. [Arnov Sharma] has made a great tribute to the WS2812B LED by building the NeoPixel Giant Edition. The build is simply a recreation of the standard […]
Regular Christmas trees don’t emit light, nor do they react to music. If you want both things in a holiday decoration, consider this build from [dbmaking]. An ESP32-D1 mini runs the show here. It’s hooked up to a strip of WS2812B addressable LEDs. The LED strip is placed on a wooden frame resembling the shape […]