adam široký

The aim of this project was to create a standalone unit, a LED controller that would be highly portable and configurable, and it would be possible to control it over TCP/IP network using OSC.

For this purpose, I have used Raspberry Pi, two Adafruit 16 channel PWM controllers, and custom software that translates OSC messages into control signals for the PWM circuits. For quick deployment the controllers are built into boxes and equipped with connectors that enable quick connection to Raspberry Pi, LED stripes and power sources.

Usage of Raspberry Pi gives this solution a lot of flexibility - you can choose programming environment that you like, you can use wired or wireless network for controlling it, or just write the whole "show" as a program/script that will run directly on Raspberry Pi. The PWM controllers can be chained (up to 62), in theory making possible to control 310 independent LED stripes.

There are also some disadvantages to this approach, the biggest one I found is a slight delay between the first and the second (chained) PWM controller. Also the process of building additional controllers is time consuming.. so the whole solution does not scale well, given that one PWM controller can control 5 LED stripes.

Used on MAY BIO festival 2014, Byob Prague (24.5.2014), PUSH! party @Storm Club Prague, BLEM pary @Basement Bar Prague and probably some more..

Download the software