Arduino Chandelier From Jars

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Edit:

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Hi All,

This is my second instructable: Arduino chandelier from mini jars. My first one was my : Cuckoo Alarm Clock from Hard Drive.

I wanted to give my room some special design, with mooth lighting so when I had the option to use RGB leds and a Arduino board I decided I needed my own making a chandelier.

Before we get started we are going to need a little bit of motivation, take a look at these pictures and realize what you will be making.

This project very tedious and time consuming. Any time that you get frustrated while making this project, take a deep breath, come back to this step, take a look at the pictures and remember what you are working towards!

Here is what you need to make your chandelier:

Electronics:

• PCB sheet
• Arduino mini 5V
• USB Serial Light Adapter or Arduino Uno, Duemillanove or something similar to act as a HOST (detachable Chip!!)
• RGB Leds (50 pcs)
• 8-bit shift register 74hc595d SMD (19 pcs)
• Octal Bus Transceiver 74hc245d SMD
• Electrolytic Decoupling Capacitors - 100uF/16V

• High capacity rechargeable battery

Frame:

• Acrylic sheet
• Spray paint
• Copper wire
• Insulation Sleeving
• Mini jars (50 pcs)

Tools:

• Handsaw
• Drill
• Drill bits
• Hot glue and it's gun
• Super glue
• Soldering iron
• Solder
• Wire cutters
• Pliers
• ...

I decided the dimensions of my acrylic frame at 6.5" diameter, it fits my room, not too small and easy lighting throughout the room. 6.5" with 50 jars and 50 leds corresponding.

First, drawing circles on acrylic plate, divide the LED position that you want to sort, then use a handsaw or sawmill parasols for sawing acrylic sheet. Next, drill holes at the locations specified by 2mm drill bit.

I broke the an acrylic plate because I saw too fast, of course, the experience for you as sawing slowly.

Next, remove the protective paper sheet from the acrylic and installation of insulation sleeving pipe was cut short into boreholes.

Finally, using spray paint to decorate it.

After shopping all the electronic parts, I assemble circuit follow the circuit diagram reference from elcojacobs.

With 50 RGB leds, I need 19 pcs of 74hc595 to driven.

Explain:

Take a look at the schematic

Each RGB led consists of three colors, corresponding to 3 pins controller.

Each 8-bit shift register 74HC595 has 8 control output.

I need to control 50 RGB Leds, which means I need 50x3 = 150 pins control, corresponding to 150/8 = 19 shift registers.

HOW TO UPLOAD THOSE SKETCHES TO AN ARDUINO MINI:

I’ve been into Arduino programming lately and looking forward to create a small form factor project. To get code into it you might want to try the following technique.

You’ll need an USB Serial Light Adapter or Arduino Uno, Duemillanove or something similar to act as a HOST (detachable Chip!!) .

Basically, connect the main Arduino’s 5v, GND, RX,TX (not crossed, just RX to RX and TX to TX) and RESET to the mini. Now for the most important part. DETACH the ATMega chip from the host board (Duemilanove, Uno.. what ever) and start uploading your sketches as you would with the normal arduino. No need to change the Board in the Arudino software. THAT’s IT. Nothing more. Just do it and enjoy.

About Programming:

I using ShiftPWM library for Arduino, you can download at Elcojacops Githup. Very thankful to Elco Jacobs for this library. You can refer to the example file in this library.

Based on software PWM on site http://www.elcojacobs.com/shiftpwm/ I chose the PWM frequency is 60, the maximum brightness is 255.

My code file is attached below.

How to make print circuits boards?????

Just type and search, hundreds of results on Instructables.

Refer to the Eagle pcb file is attached below, including control board and Leds board.

Note: PCB file has not been finalized.

Sawing Led board up into small pieces, then soldering the RGB Leds on it.

Finally, use pliers to cut short the pins for the leds

Use glue gun to glue the LEDs and the jars together.

Note: be careful with the high temperature glue guns.

Cut into four strands of copper wire for each LED, do be careful not to rope broke.

Then, cut short 1/4" of the insulation sleeving pipe, insert the copper wire into the pipe.

Next, soldering the wire with led boards and testing.

Solder the copper wires on the control board.

OMG! 150 wires. I spent 2 days to complete the wiring, it is an extremely difficult task.

Any time that you get frustrated while making this project, take a deep breath, come back to Step 1, take a look at the pictures and remember what you are working towards! haha

Finally, fixed battery cells wired together with plastic wire ties.

Get the rechargeable batteries from the electronics down, I decided to connect it to a chandelier for use in areas where electricity is not available. I wired parallel four-cell battery, which is 4000mAh (1000mah for each).

I test it used to be about 5 hours, the battery cell is ideal to power lights for outdoor activities where electricity is not available. After the battery has run out, the charger for about 2 hours to be able to continue using.

Test wiring accurate, uniform color display! Hehe

If you really like it, you can vote on the top right corner.

Thanks!