[Noisebridge-discuss] What more can we do to turn Noisebridge into something out of a Gibson novel?

[Mitch Altman]

> Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 16:08:02 -0800
> From: jof at thejof.com
> To: listmail at b79.net
> CC: noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] What more can we do to turn Noisebridge into something out of a Gibson novel?
> 
> On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 3:21 PM, John Magolske <listmail at b79.net> wrote:
> > * Jonathan Lassoff <jof at thejof.com> [110304 23:28]:
> >> I'd love to outfit a room or portion of the space in a theme of sorts
> >> with RGB LEDs that we can re-modulate to show what we want.
> >>
> >> Does anyone know of any pre-made RGB LED boards that we can control,
> >> preferably over Ethernet or serial?
> >> Alternatively, this could be an interesting collaborative project to
> >> make a simple board filled with RGB LEDs and a microcontroller.
> >>
> >> Does anyone else find this to be an interesting avenue?
> >
> > I think this could be very interesting. In addition to RGB, it might
> > be fun to throw controllable white & amber LEDs into the mix. Here's
> > one local LED resource:
> >
> >  http://www.ledwholesalers.com/store/
> 
> Wow, these guys have some interesting-looking hardware for seemingly
> decent prices. Unfortunately, nothing like I had imagined. I think
> it's good to keep in mind.
> 
> Around grid square G3 (https://www.noisebridge.net/wiki/2169_map),
> there's a wonderfully beautiful multi-color board that I think Mitch
> put together. Something along those lines would be perfect, IMHO.
> 
> Mitch, what was it like building that board? What was the approximate
> cost (without phototransistors, if it's easy to subtract)?

Without any IR sensors and IR emitters, it gets pretty cheap.  And if you don't care about controlling the color sequence, you can get RGB LEDs with microcontrollers built in for really cheap.  There's a place on eBay that sells slow-flash RGB LEDs for about 30¢ each: hktaiyuen.  Here's 50 diffused, slow-change RGB LEDs for $14 (with Buy It Now):
http://cgi.ebay.com/50x-5mm-RGB-White-Lens-Diffused-Slow-Color-Change-LEDs-/300528328675?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item45f8e25fe3
 
If you want to control the colors, then you'll need a microcontroller and a bunch of diffused RGB LEDs -- RGB LEDs without built-in microcontrollers cost about the same as ones with microcontrollers built in.
 
Mitch.
 
  		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.noisebridge.net/pipermail/noisebridge-discuss/attachments/20110305/68f699b3/attachment-0003.html>