yssagul
New member
Hi everybody!
I took on a challenge for Burning Man this year to build super-mega-awesome-rad lighting for two 20' tall fire-breathing giraffes. (!!!)
I studied industrial design and have been mostly terrified of electrical projects in the past, but I have gained an elementary sense of how LED lighting works through projects at my current company (long animated LED bars for vehicle status, etc). Last year, the lighting on the (now defunct) giraffes was nothing special (just some fairy lights). My camp wanted to build something that really stood out, so moving to addressable LEDs were the natural course of action.
Each giraffe base will be set up approximately 5 meters apart from each other and the light strips will extend from the base of the neck to the head (going from ~2.5m to 5.5m). Since most strips come in 5 meter rolls, I arrived at the simple and efficient calculation of 2.5m per strip. Essentially, the goal is to have 8 strips 2.5m each running vertically up each neck of the giraffes. The ideal scenario is that the animations are closely matching or mirrored from giraffe to giraffe (they will be facing each other). As well, I'm sure many of you are familiar with the environmental considerations of BM.
I've been reading up on builds for a few weeks to get up to speed with what supplies are generally needed for an installation of this scale.
What I arrived at is this on a basic level (AKA, this is what I have in my possession currently):
- 40 meters total WS2812b LED strips @60 LEDs/m (2.5m each) = 150 LEDs per strip
- 4x 5V 40A power supplies
- 2x Teensy 3.2 microcontrollers
I have read through the documentation for a project that is almost comparable in scale. It has been super helpful to form an overall perspective of the build: https://learn.adafruit.com/1500-neopixel-led-curtain-with-raspberry-pi-fadecandy/overview
What I'm not 100% on is a number of questions that follows:
- Will the Teensy's have enough memory for a few animations (5-6) that loop continuously?
- Does using the OctoWS2811 Adaptor make sense for this project?
- If using an OctoWS2811 Adaptor, would I need some other "computer" to create the data?
- Does it make sense to make wiring harnesses directly from the Teensy's and use the FastLED library instead of the adaptor?
- Is the FastLED library compatible with the OctoWS2811 adaptor?
- What type of connectors would you use? Can you suggest where to order them from?
In summary, I'm a little over my head (but I fortunately have a team of volunteers that know far more than I do). I like challenges and get super into research, but often get frozen by making actual choices (please assume that I will follow your directions if you tell me directly). I'm also super excited that I am learning something that has been scary to me in the past and have always looked at in amazement.
When I get further along, I hope some of you might even want to send me some cool animations!
Cheers,
Nathaniel
P.S. Attached is a basic drawing of the giraffe structures.
I took on a challenge for Burning Man this year to build super-mega-awesome-rad lighting for two 20' tall fire-breathing giraffes. (!!!)
I studied industrial design and have been mostly terrified of electrical projects in the past, but I have gained an elementary sense of how LED lighting works through projects at my current company (long animated LED bars for vehicle status, etc). Last year, the lighting on the (now defunct) giraffes was nothing special (just some fairy lights). My camp wanted to build something that really stood out, so moving to addressable LEDs were the natural course of action.
Each giraffe base will be set up approximately 5 meters apart from each other and the light strips will extend from the base of the neck to the head (going from ~2.5m to 5.5m). Since most strips come in 5 meter rolls, I arrived at the simple and efficient calculation of 2.5m per strip. Essentially, the goal is to have 8 strips 2.5m each running vertically up each neck of the giraffes. The ideal scenario is that the animations are closely matching or mirrored from giraffe to giraffe (they will be facing each other). As well, I'm sure many of you are familiar with the environmental considerations of BM.
I've been reading up on builds for a few weeks to get up to speed with what supplies are generally needed for an installation of this scale.
What I arrived at is this on a basic level (AKA, this is what I have in my possession currently):
- 40 meters total WS2812b LED strips @60 LEDs/m (2.5m each) = 150 LEDs per strip
- 4x 5V 40A power supplies
- 2x Teensy 3.2 microcontrollers
I have read through the documentation for a project that is almost comparable in scale. It has been super helpful to form an overall perspective of the build: https://learn.adafruit.com/1500-neopixel-led-curtain-with-raspberry-pi-fadecandy/overview
What I'm not 100% on is a number of questions that follows:
- Will the Teensy's have enough memory for a few animations (5-6) that loop continuously?
- Does using the OctoWS2811 Adaptor make sense for this project?
- If using an OctoWS2811 Adaptor, would I need some other "computer" to create the data?
- Does it make sense to make wiring harnesses directly from the Teensy's and use the FastLED library instead of the adaptor?
- Is the FastLED library compatible with the OctoWS2811 adaptor?
- What type of connectors would you use? Can you suggest where to order them from?
In summary, I'm a little over my head (but I fortunately have a team of volunteers that know far more than I do). I like challenges and get super into research, but often get frozen by making actual choices (please assume that I will follow your directions if you tell me directly). I'm also super excited that I am learning something that has been scary to me in the past and have always looked at in amazement.
When I get further along, I hope some of you might even want to send me some cool animations!
Cheers,
Nathaniel
P.S. Attached is a basic drawing of the giraffe structures.
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