Remote Controlled Colorful LED Lights for Aquarium

Follow the instructions below to add Colorful LED lights around the aquarium before your next house party. And in addition use a RF remote to control the theme of the lights while the party is on with a 4 button remote control attached to your keychain..

This instructable is divided into two part

1. Basic colorful mix, which would cost you about 24$ and 35 minutes to build
2. Remote control light themes, which would cost you an additional 19$ and another 30 minutes to build

As part of the build you'll use Adafruit's Trinket which is a tiny microcontroller board, built around the Atmel ATtiny85, a little chip with a lot of power and NeoPixels, you can read all about at the following link .

Now if you want a particular light theme playing or just want an easy way to switch the LED lights on/off, add a RF receiver and use a RF remote, to control the various themes you programmed using the Arduino IDE.

The 4 button on the RF remote control correspond to

• A is to kill the Lights
• B is for the blue color theme
• C is for the rainbow color theme
• D is for running red theme

Try and change the color theme by experimenting with the code and share an image by commenting below..

Here are the part required for the Basic build

• NeoPixel Digital RGB LED Strip - White 30 LED
• Adafruit Trinket - Mini Microcontroller - 5V Logic
• Medium Suction Cups(about 6) to hold the NeoPixel RGB LEDS which you should get at a hardware store

• MiniB USB cable

Addtional electronic componets required, to add Remote Control capability

• Simple RF T4 Receiver
• 4-Button RF Remote Control
• BreadBoard or Breadboard PCB
• Breadboard-able hookup wire

Tools you'll needed

• Soldering Iron
• Solder
• BreadBoard if you want to test the circuit before assembly
• Breadboarding wire

Note : The cable that you need to upload the code and power the Trinket is a MiniB USB cable, which is NOT the same as the one used on Android Phone/tables.

Get the NeoPixel strip and Trinket out of the anti-static bag

If you plan on doing only the basic build, that is with out the remote control capability, solder the Trinket to the NeoPixel Strip as shown in the circuit digram.

Solder the 5V pin to the red wire of the NeoPixel Strip

connect the GND pin to the black wire

And pin #1 to white wire (Din of the NeoPixel)

Tip: if you plan to use the trinket in other projects, solder the header pins which come with the trinket and then use female jumper wires, like I did, as shown in the picture.

To upload code attached to the Trinket you will have to download Adafruit's version of the Arduino IDE and install it on you computer. For complete details on how to, follow this link

https://learn.adafruit.com/introducing-trinket/set...

In addition as part of the setup you will have to download the NeoPixel library from the following link

https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberg...

place the downloaded library in the /Arduino/Libraries folder and restart your IDE.Once you IDE is back up ensure that you see File > Examples >Adafruit_NeoPixel > strandtest, which means you have completed the setup successfully.

Now Download the code file attached

Using the Arduino IDE Open the file (from the menu select File > Open)

Next select the type of programer as show in the screenshot (Tools > Programmer > USBtinyISP)

Also select the board you are using (Tools > Board > Adafruit Trinket 8MHz )

Now press the button located just below the chip on the Trinket, wait for Red light to blink bright red and then upload the code to the Trinket (File > Upload)

Once done in about a second you should see your Neopixel strip glowing..

Press the suction cups on too the glass of the Aquarium.

Place the LED strip in the hooks of the suction cup

Connect the Trinket to the MiniB USB cable to power it up from a wall socket.

In my case I just need 3 suction cups, as i had a sticky plastic on the glass,which i used to secure the LED strip.

Tip : If the suctions cups look messy,try using double sided sticky foam tape.

Connect circuit using hookup wire and a breadboard as shown in the circuit digram, and once your confident about your connections you can solder it on a PCB.

Connect 5V pin to the red wire of the NeoPixel Strip

connect the GND pin to the back wire

and pin #1 to white wire (Din of NeoPixel)

using hookup wire connect the Trinket's

• pin #0 to D1 on the RF receiver module
• pin #2 to D0
• pin #3 to D2
• pin #4 to D3
• +5V pin to +5V
• and GND to GND

Download the code file attached

Using the Arduino IDE Open the file (from the menu select File > Open)

Now press the button located just below the chip on the Trinket, wait for Red light to blink bright red

And then upload the code to the trinket (File > Upload).

Ensure that the Arduino IDE at the bottom shows message "Done Uploading"

Watch Remote control testing video for the themes mentioned below.

A is to kill the lights corresponds to pin#4 on the Trinket

B is for blue color theme and corresponds to pin#3

C is for running rainbow color theme and corresponds to pin #0

D is for the running Red theme and corresponds to pin #2