Home Depot has at times sold a neat spiral lamp that relies on LEDs to supply its soothing white glow. When [Craig Lindley] saw some modified versions on YouTube he decided he had to build one himself. The result is a charming rainbow lamp that really lights up a room (pardon the pun). [Craig] first […]
LEDs were once little more than weedy little indicators with low light output. Today, they’re absolute powerhouses, efficiently turning a flow of electrons into a searing beam of light. Despite their efficiency, they can still put out a fair whack of heat. Thus, if you’re building a powerful flashlight like [CrazyScience], you might wanna throw […]
If you’re looking to add a pop of glowing whimsy to your workspace, check out this vibrant jiggly desk toy by [thzinc], who couldn’t resist the allure of Adafruit’s NOODS LED strands. [thzinc]’s fascination with both glowing LEDs and levitating tensegrity designs led to an innovative attempt to defy gravity once again. The construction’s genius […]
A few years ago [Brian McCafferty] created a nice big RGB LED panel in a poster frame that aimed to be easy to move, program, and display. We’d like to draw particular attention to one of his construction methods. On the software end of things there are multiple ways to get images onto a DIY […]
It’s simple enough to wire up an LED matrix and have it display some pre-programmed routines. What can be more fun is when the LEDs are actually interactive in some regard. [Giulio Pons] achieved this with his interactive LED box, which lets you play with the pixels via motion controls. The build runs of a […]
We love seeing retro games evolve into new, unexpected dimensions. Enter [Markus]’ adaptation of 3D Tetris on a custom-built 3x3x12 RGB LED matrix. Developed as a university project, this open-source setup combines coding, soldering, and 3D printing. It’s powered by an ESP32 microcontroller with gameplay controlled by a neat web interface. This 3D build makes […]
Here’s the thing about running large strings of Neopixels—also known as WS2812 addressable LEDs. You need to truck out a ton of data, and fast. There are a dozen different libraries out there to drive them already, but [Zorxx] decided to strike out with a new technique—using I2S hardware to get the job done. Fast! […]
[Boz] wants to build a retrocomputer, but where to start? You could start with the computery bits, like say the CPU or the bus architecture, but where’s the fun in that? Instead, [Boz] built a righteous blinkenlights array. What’s cool about this display is that it’s ready to go out of the box. All of the […]