LED Effect Lighting
We’ve all seen those decorative LED strips in the big box stores. They are either controlled by a remote (who needs another remote control?) or by an app. I am here to tell you that the cheap Chinese lights and their apps are essentially spyware.
So to be safe we want to use an Open Source solution to power our lights. Enter, WLED by Aircookie. Before we go down the rabbit hole I want you to realize that this isn’t the typical geek project.
It is EASY! Anyone can do this. But to make it easy you’ll need a few things that could be optional if you cannot solder or you don’t have a drawer full of electronic geek stuff.
BEFORE I TALK TOO MUCH AND SCARE YOU OFF WE ARE GOING TO DO THIS ESSENTIALLY:
- PLUG IN A CHIP TO A COMPUTER
- OPEN A PROGRAM AND FLASH THAT CHIP WITH ONE BUTTON CLICK
- HOOK UP 5 WIRES
There are a lot of different LED strips and your selection will depend on what you are doing. Because I put a 4′ strip behind a workbench I used 5 volt strips. If you are doing a pretty long run, a 5 volt strip might not power all your lights without additional power injection. 12 volt strips MIGHT also require a level shifter on the data wires to get the signal down stream. Your ESP8266 chip will send a 3.3v data signal out. To make a long run you might need 5 volts. A level shifter turns a 3.3 volt signal into a 5 volt signal. But I digress. Let’s keep this simple.
On to the Build Of Materials:
I’ve done my share of 3D printing with various printers. I have hand built a Rep-Rap kit, and owned an M3D cube printer.
