☰ Workshops ⌫ Building a lighthouse

Building a lighthouse

Use this site to download and upload stuff for this workshop: http://gg.gg/13eu5p

Introduction in Notion

• We will build 5x lighthouses today
• Let's make 5 teams
• Each person in a team takes responsibility over one of these activities: soldering LEDs, soldering PCBs, construction, making good wires & connectors, making some content in TD

Activity 1: LED fixture

tools needed: scissors, cutting pliers, soldering iron, JST crimping tool

materials: colored wires, round black fat wire (3 leads), JST connectors, soldering tin, pre-cut aluminium square tube

Build the pixel strip

• cut two strips of 45 pixels each

• observe the direction of the arrows

• solder a bridge of about 3cm of wire joining both strips

• make sure the arrows are all pointing in the same direction

• get pre-cut aluminium profile

• slide one of the strips through the top two openings

• tape the strips down on opposing sides of the alu profile

• find the first pixel of your strip, if you don't know, ask, it's important :)

Wire to connect the strip to the board

• get a length of about 40cm of the black round wire
• strip it at both ends
• on one end you will need to install a 3-pin JST connector
• the other end will be soldered to the end of the strip where the first pixel is

Activity 2: PCB

tools needed: cutting pliers, soldering iron, tweezers

materials: raw PCB, soldering tin, USB wall adapter, sacrificial USB cable, black dupont headers, JST connectors, bag of components

Populate the board

• Solder the JST connectors
• Solder the sockets for the microcontroller and the motor drivers (black pin things)
• Solder all other components (should be in the bag)

Create a USB power cable

• make a frankencable by using a sacrificial USB cable stripping one end and attaching it to a round barrel connector (connector should be in the bag)

Flash the microcontroller

• borrow the PCB that you can use to program the ESP32
• visit this website: https://warez.desearch.cc
• select the firmware "rodil+murgia R1 (with ethernet)"
• click on "Flash"
• select the serial port where your ESP is connected to
• you will be given the option to configure the wifi after you flash, conncet to the installation's WIFI (will not work on the school's network)
  • SSID: SPECTRUMNET
  • PSSWD: SPECTRUM333333
• your microcontroller is now ready
• stick the microcontroller in the red PCB
• use the blue push buttons to configure the board to work with the motor, push the buttons like this

Install phone app to test

• Go to your phone's app store and search for the WLED app
• install it on your phone

Activity 3: testing the light

• connect the LED strip to the PCB board using the 3pin JST socket
• power the PCB using the frankencable and a USB walll adapter
• after a few seconds a new WIFI access point should appear on your phone called "WLED-AP"
• connect your phone to it (password: wled1234)
• start the WLED app
• go to "Setup"
  1. configure the LED strip
     • Data GPIO: 12
     • Start: 0
     • Length: 90
  2. configure Sync Interfaces
     • Go to DMX network section
     • choose type Art-Net
     • start universe: (chose your group number for this one)
     • DMX mode: "Dimmer + Multi RGB"
  3. check the config in the notion (we used a different LED strip for the notion documentation)
• go back to the WLED app's main screen
• try changing the colors, animations, etc.
• with many people building different fixtures it is possible that there will be many "WLED-AP" wifi access points in the space
• coordinate with others so that only one is powered at a time, go to settings and change the name of yours
• Let's called them: LH1, LH2, LH3, LH4 and LH5 (pick one, that's yours)

Activity 4: Mechanics

tools needed: allen key M5, screwdriver, hammer (wooden hammer is ideal)

materials: 3D prints, tripod stand, pre-cut 12cm steel tube, pre-cut 5cm screw

Prepare the stand

• get a stand (tripod) and attach the coupling to it using a M5 screw

Building the rotary

• attach the gear with the small center hole to the motor, you will have to press quite hard to do that, tap it VERY GENTLY with a hammer untill it's totally in and the motorhead and is flush with the gear
• build the rotary assembly as in the diagram, take your time
• attach the motor to the rotary
• adjust the height of the ring so that both gears align as perfectly as you can

Bringing everything together

• attach the LED fixture to the top coupling in the rotary, it's a tight fit you might need to tap VERY GENTLY with a hammer
• drive the cable coming out of the LEDs through the tube of the rotary untill it pops from underneath, get as much cable out as you can
• attach the rotary element to the tripod using the coupling and keeping the cable in the whole of the coupling so that it's fully out

Activity 5: content

pre-requisites: mouse, TouchDesigner installed

• You can find the templates and all the workshop stuff here: http://gg.gg/13eu5p