Category Archives: Lighting

Build a DMX FeatherWing to Control Lights with a Feather M0

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Glen

This project uses an Adafruit Feather M0 board to control a group of RGB lights using the DMX-512 protocol. We’ll build a DMX-512 FeatherWing and connect it to the Feather M0 and a Particle Ethernet FeatherWing. Finally, we’ll develop a web-based GUI to select different RGB lighting effects and control the lights. Continue reading →

Posted in DMX / Art-Net, Ethernet, Lighting, Microchip, Power over Ethernet (PoE), SAMD21 | Comments Off on Build a DMX FeatherWing to Control Lights with a Feather M0

PoE-Powered RGB LED Floodlight

Posted on February 2, 2020 by Glen

This project uses a Silvertel 802.3at Ag5300 PoE+ module with a built-in isolated 24 V DC/DC converter to power a 10 W ColorKinetics ColorBurst 4 RGB LED floodlight. The Ethernet cable and light plug into a small power / control board and PoE+ powers the floodlight and Art-Net UDP packets control the light. Continue reading →

Posted in DMX / Art-Net, Ethernet, Lighting, Microchip, PIC18, Power over Ethernet (PoE), RGB LED | Comments Off on PoE-Powered RGB LED Floodlight

It’s an Ethernet-Powered Christmas Tree!

Posted on December 29, 2019 by Glen

The lighted tree in the video above gets both the power and data for its RGB LED pixels using a single Ethernet cable. Power for the pixels is supplied from an Ethernet switch using the 802.3at PoE+ standard. Data for … Continue reading →

Posted in DMX / Art-Net, Ethernet, Lighting, Microchip, PIC18, Power over Ethernet (PoE), RGB LED | Comments Off on It’s an Ethernet-Powered Christmas Tree!

Reverse Engineering the iColor Flex Protocol

Posted on November 17, 2019 by Glen

Back in the early 2000’s–at least a decade before there were Neopixels or WS2812b LEDs–Color Kinetics introduced flexible color changing LED string lights. Each string contained fifty RGB color changing nodes. Each node contained an RGB LED and a custom … Continue reading →

Posted in FPGA, Lighting, RGB LED | Comments Off on Reverse Engineering the iColor Flex Protocol

Homebrew DMX-Controlled RGB LED Light

Posted on April 13, 2019 by Glen

This project is a small DMX-512 controlled, color-changing RGB LED light. The light can be controlled via the DMX512 protocol or it can run a number of built-in programs depending on how the software is configured. The light incorporates an … Continue reading →

Posted in 3D Printing, DMX / Art-Net, Fusion 360, Lighting, PIC24, RGB LED | Comments Off on Homebrew DMX-Controlled RGB LED Light

PIC18 Four-Channel DMX Relay Controller

Posted on October 3, 2017 by Glen

Halloween was right around the corner and I needed a timer with a bunch of relays to trigger some store-bought props and a fog machine periodically. (Mental note: read fog machine specs carefully—not all come with timer remotes.) My first … Continue reading →

Posted in CNC Milling, DMX / Art-Net, Fusion 360, Lighting, Microchip, PIC18 | Comments Off on PIC18 Four-Channel DMX Relay Controller

Color Kinetics ColorBurst 6 Teardown

Posted on June 9, 2014 by Glen

I’ve had three Color Kinetics ColorBurst 6 RGB LED fixtures in my front yard for about ten years now. They’ve survived numerous winter snowstorms and spring monsoons. Recently one of the three fixtures started taking on water and the blue … Continue reading →

Posted in Lighting, RGB LED, Teardowns | Comments Off on Color Kinetics ColorBurst 6 Teardown

Folding the Six Panel Wall into a Cube

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Glen

After seeing this cube and this cube, I decided it was time to build an LED cube of my own leveraging the BeagleBone Black and FPGA work I had already done for my six-panel mini video wall. The cube project … Continue reading →

Posted in BeagleBone Black, FPGA, LED Matrix, Lighting, RGB LED | Comments Off on Folding the Six Panel Wall into a Cube

Expanding the BeagleBone Black and FPGA to Drive 6 (or more) Panels

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Glen

After completing my first BeagleBone Black + FPGA project and tutorial where I drove a single 32×32 RGB LED matrix, I decided it was time to go bigger. The result is the project shown below—a 3 x 2 matrix of … Continue reading →

Posted in BeagleBone Black, FPGA, LED Matrix, Lighting, RGB LED | Comments Off on Expanding the BeagleBone Black and FPGA to Drive 6 (or more) Panels

Driving a 32×32 RGB LED Matrix with a BeagleBone Black and an FPGA

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Glen

My latest project uses a BeagleBone Black and a Xilinx Spartan 6 LX9 FPGA to drive a 32×32 RGB LED matrix. This project lets me display cool and interesting patterns on a matrix of 32×32 RGB LEDs. That’s 1024 RGB … Continue reading →

Posted in BeagleBone Black, FPGA, LED Matrix, Lighting, RGB LED | Comments Off on Driving a 32×32 RGB LED Matrix with a BeagleBone Black and an FPGA