I built these today. Despite appearances, no welding was required. That's all 1/8 inch hardboard and 3/4 inch square hardwood molding, hot glued together. Then I sealed, painted flat black, applied iron-powder paint in various locations, then applied rust agent in multiple layers to get a nice effect. Then I pulled some parts off the TechShop Wall O' Junk and glued them on for extra zing. The tubes contain 10 ShiftBrite modules each, and will be used as left and right VU channels.

I've been working on the LED array a few evenings this week, at TechShop. Most of the work is done, at least the part involving woodworking. I still need to drill 384 holes, paint everything white, then build about 75 circuit boards and wire everything up. Should be done in time for the Maker Faire if I get the controller finished this week. Then there's the control software, and web interface, and Winamp plugin, and the other projects....

This is the pre-alpha version of one of the VU columns that will be used as an example of ShiftBrite applications at Maker Faire this May. I've only got two LEDs in this one, the brightness corresponding to the current power of the left or right channel. If the power rises above a threshold, some of the green channel is mixed into both LEDs. The audio data is currently fed over a USB-RS232 converter from a custom Winamp plugin I wrote. The actual finished device will be a freestanding tube for the left and right channels, and 10 LEDs in each tube instead of two. There will be several color presets, like "warm neon", "fire", "spectrum", etc. The tube is a fluorescent protector tube from Home Depot lined with galvanized steel mesh from the same store.

Below: a newer version with laser-cut acrylic holder for 10 ShiftBrites, only five are installed right now.   Read more»

Over at Darker Technologies they're making good progress on the Maker Faire projects that we're exhibiting in the same booth this May. The first LED grow lamp array has been built and tested. It uses red and blue LEDs, since those are the wavelengths plants absorb (they reflect green, so no need to waste power emitting that color). He'll be testing the arrays on live plants this month, using other light sources as a control. If you're in the SF Bay Area this May, stop by the Maker Faire in San Mateo and check out all the great projects and exhibits! There's a lot to do! It's fun!

ShiftBrites in stock now.

Click here to purchase online. 

ShiftBrite is a simple device I am designing and producing. It allows easy control of a bright RGB LED. The interface is a straightforward clocked serial data line and a latch input. All signals are buffered and passed through for good performance over long cables and daisy chaining many devices. Many ShiftBrite devices can be controlled from any type of controller that supports clocked serial data output, which is practically all microcontrollers and even PC parallel port or FTDI bitbang adapters.

The above images are renders of the revision 1 design. These were created by exporting PCB images from Cadsoft Eagle, and using the images as textures in a Sketchup model.  Read more»