I got my first strip of LED lights to try out. They’re exactly the same hardware as Adafruit’s Neopixels, but a different brand. Just to test them out I hooked them up to my bench power supply and an Arduino Uno and loaded an example sketch. Here’s a video of the test. Please excuse my messy workbench!
I’ve also purchased an Adafruit Trinket Pro, which has pretty much the same basic specs as the Arduino Uno, but it’s just a lot smaller, so that should make it easier to mount somewhere on the uni.
Still need to figure out a battery and how I’ll attach the strips, the battery, and the controller to the frame, but it’s looking promising. In this test, the amp draw never went above 0.71, and the average was around 0.3, so I’m thinking a 3500mAh battery would be more than enough to last through the parade. Of course, this will depend on whether or not I use more strips, and how much juice the light sequence I program will use, but I’m optimistic that I’m headed in the right direction so far.
I got my first strip of LED lights to try out. They’re exactly the same hardware as Adafruit’s Neopixels, but a different brand. Just to test them out I hooked them up to my bench power supply and an Arduino Uno and loaded an example sketch. Here’s a video of the test. Please excuse my messy workbench!
I’ve also purchased an Adafruit Trinket Pro, which has pretty much the same basic specs as the Arduino Uno, but it’s just a lot smaller, so that should make it easier to mount somewhere on the uni.
Still need to figure out a battery and how I’ll attach the strips, the battery, and the controller to the frame, but it’s looking promising. In this test, the amp draw never went above 0.71, and the average was around 0.3, so I’m thinking a 3500mAh battery would be more than enough to last through the parade. Of course, this will depend on whether or not I use more strips, and how much juice the light sequence I program will use, but I’m optimistic that I’m headed in the right direction so far.
Hello theaterChase() my old friend. Funny, I was just reading through the NeoPixels demo last night, no relation to unicycles but definitely inspired by this thread. That looks fantastic!
Seeing it now, it would be impressive even without being synced to the turning wheel. That might melt some brains if the lights just chased around the rim opposite to the direction the wheel was turning. And if you randomly sped up and slowed down the rate of the chase, there could be times where the lights were going forward, backward, or just about stopped.
It’s always nice to get to the point where you can see it working, and it looks like you’re on you way now. Good job! The sky’s the limit from here.
The Parade of lights is coming up on the 20th of this month, so I figured I better finish up my project. Had a lot of fun figuring out how to program the NeoPixels. I wound up using a 1 meter strip of 60 NeoPixles cut in half, run in parallel, and installed on both sides of my frame controlled by an Adafruit Arduino Pro Trinket. I used simple, red LED Christmas lights in the spokes (not shown in the video). I put a water bottle on the back to hold the Adafruit Pro Trinket and a 10,500 mAh USB battery (which was total overkill, but it was cheap) to power both the Pro Trinket and the NeoPixel strips. I wired the LED lights in the spokes to two AA batteries and just strapped them to the hub inside the spokes. I’ve road tested it, and I can UPD pretty bad and hop fairly aggressively and not damage anything or have anything fall off, so I think I’m set. Here’s some video and pics below.
Thanks! And sorry, yes, these are long exposures, anywhere from 4 to 30 seconds. Probably should have explained that. Basically, the LEDs on the side are running in patterns along the strip while I’m riding perpendicular to the camera taking the long exposures. Here’s mostly what I’m doing during the long exposures:
We finally had the parade last Sunday. It’s a yearly parade in downtown Ft. Worth, Texas, called the Parade of Lights. It’s a winter holiday parade with Santa being the final float. It’s at night and pretty spectacular. Our group, the DFW Unicycle Club, was 3rd out of about 150 groups, and were joined by WRUNT (We Ride Unicycles of North Texas), a local high school club, and a few others that just showed up at the last minute. Judging by the crowd’s response, I’d say we were a big hit. Highly recommend parades. There’s no other experience quite like it!
Funny, I was just reading through the NeoPixels demo last night, no relation to unicycles but definitely inspired by this thread. That looks fantastic!
