RGB Lightboard With Arduino

This is a fun little project just for fun. It's a small light board you can control with a joystick. I made it while I was doing a design course and doesn't really have a purpose other than to just entertain you. It's really fun to use and I think you will enjoy it too.

When you power it the middle light turns on, and moving the joystick creates a trail of light that follows the joystick's movements. The rotary encoder is used to change the colour of the lights, and clicking it makes the colours cycle automatically.

• Arduino UNO
• breadboard
• rotary encoder
• joystick
• 5x8 RGB LED matrix shield - Amazon link
• misc. wires

So the first thing you'll want to do is assemble everything. Once you have all the parts you'll want to fix them in place to make this easy to use. In my case I just attached everything to a board, but you can do whatever you want with it. You could make it look like a miniature game console, or attach it to your desk, or anything else.

One thing to keep in mind is that both the joystick and the LED matrix have orientations, so before you attach those make sure that both of them are facing the same way.

Now you will want to connect everything together.

The RGB LED shield we used allowed you to either connect to pin 6 or "DIN" on the board.

The neat thing with these "neopixel" RGB Led's is that they are all serial addressable... so you only need to connect one control pin plus power and ground.

Follow the wiring diagrams to get everything connected together. If you are using a breadboard like me then you can simply use jumper wires to get everything connected. Otherwise, if you are doing a more permanent installation you may want to consider soldering it all together for more longevity.

Once everything is wired up, we are ready to get it programmed and running.

You will now connect the Arduino to your computer and program it using the Arduino IDE.

If you have never used Arduino, you will find all the information you need at :

https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide

Now that it is programmed you are ready to have some fun!

you're done!

Once you power up your project you will see the center LED illuminate.

On the rotary encoder, click the knob in and you will toggle between auto color select or manual color select. When it is in manual mode you can turn the encoder left or right and see how the color changes.

Now try to manipulate the joystick. If you have mounted everything correctly you will see the illuminated LED move around the board following the position of the joystick. Depending how fast you move the stick you may notice a trail effect as the LED moves.

Now enjoy your little personal light show.