A blog by Glen Akins
I designed a miniature traffic barrel with a blinking warning light then built a whole army of them to slow down traffic on my desktop. The warning light was a challenge because it has a lot of detail, it holds Continue reading
In this project, I use an off-the-shelf MIDI controller to trigger an RP2040 to play out sound effects from a microSD card through an audio DAC and optional amplifier and speaker. Read through to see how to combine the RP2040 s USB Continue reading
In this project, I build a miniature 3D-printed traffic signal and matching Wi-Fi-enabled controller cabinet. The big twist is that each light on the signal is really a small round LCD permitting traditional traffic signals like bicycles, globes, and arrows Continue reading
Inspired by various colorful and chonky kids toys and some old Color Kinetics architectural fixtures, this colorful Neopixel spotlight packs an Adafruit Sparkle Motion Mini into its base and can be controlled over Wi-Fi using your choice of development environments. Continue reading
A brief demo video of the lizard soundboard! A friend forwarded a video of the lizard slapping the lizard emoji on their phone and I instantly knew I needed to do the same! My phone doesn t sound out emojis though Continue reading
Tired of taking the trash out in the dark? Forgot to turn on the outside lights on the way to the trash cans? Read on to learn how I built a waterproof, battery-powered Zigbee hall-effect sensor to automatically turn on Continue reading
Ever want to control some outdoor lighting without using your phone or going back in the house? Read on to see how I installed a set of landscape lights then built a set of outdoor, waterproof Zigbee buttons to control Continue reading
Two years ago, I hung a set of generic G50 RGB globe lights in the backyard. They weren t exactly waterproof and the individual lights became water logged and started acting erratically. This year, I replaced them with two sets of Continue reading
In my my last post, I looked at four different sets of inexpensive LED flood lights to see which could be controlled using WLED. While they all could be controlled with WLED to some extent, only some could take advantage Continue reading
I m always looking for new LED lights for Halloween, Christmas, and just general tinkering. My preference is for lights that can be modified to be controlled locally by WLED. Controlling the lights locally lets me integrate the lights into larger Continue reading