Digital Cabin
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Custom desk lighting Part 0

Taming the RGB strip

So I spent my weekend finally finishing the hardware part of my LED strip desk light thing. It all started with a note on my Nextcloud instance:

Screenshot that says: Desk LED Strip Lighting 1. Mounted on top 2. Diffused 3. Can control with web and mobile (see 6) 4. RGB + Dim 5. Also use DH sensor for temp and humidity 6. MQTT + OpenHAB 7. OTA len: 120cm amps: 1.34A, ~2.9A peak during start @ 5V min space: 6x4x3 cm LxWxH or 5x7

Although most of it is about software, the idea can be described by first 3 points.

From there I experimented on a breadboard, and left it at that for a long time, until recently. I took out an old ATX PSU and did some tests. Measured dimensions, and read about my MCU of choice (ESP8266).

A messy desk with LED strip, wires, breadboard and other parts on it. A mobile phone is on displaying data sheet for some electronics

So after all that i ordered some parts, and then sat down and drew a schematic: A schematic drawn with a pencil by hand

When the parts arrived I drilled and assembled the case to figure out how much space I have to play with.

A creme white case with a red LED, barrel jack and on/off switch mounted to it

And got to work on soldering it all.

Perfboard in the middle of soldering

Mostly finished perfboard

And in the end I stuffed it all inside and soldered some more. And yes, I know I put wires on top of Wi-Fi antenna, Thug life, get over it.

Soldered perfboard inside the creme white case without cover, connected and soldered to everything

After a bit of whoopsie with the logic levels, it was done.

LED strip connected to the creme white case

Same as previous picture, but the LED strip is shining an amber color

Different, wider angle of the same picture, showing almost the full length of the LED light bar the strip is in

So now only two things left:

A web based todo list showing everything crossed off except “Code”

  1. Code the firmware
  2. Mount it.

I am still not sure if I want to over-complicate it with MQTT and OpenHAB, might just do a REST thing over HTTPS.

I’ll do the software and mounting write up next.

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