So.. my idea was to replace my "old" house number with something funny but still practical.
I've found a "default" solar light including some stick-on house numbers online for about $25.
I still had a movement sensor; base shield for the Arduino Nano V3 and a few arduino's so I though to give Neopixels a shot.
Since my house number is 5 i started thinking in the line of Vectors since it's pretty pricy to buy a Neopixel matrix.
Browsing along some websites I quickly found a round 24 pixel ring and a few straight 8 pixel strips that I though to be using.
It barely fitted the housings height; but after "snotting" it into place it suited nicely.
Since I have power supply wire in place I didn't bother to make the thing run in solar.
(The power output it would need to light the Neopixels would be too high anyway).
But I could however use the solar panel another way.
Since the aurduino has a max 5v input and the voltage of the panel increases with more light I decided to use it as a kind of LDR.
Using a resistor to limit the amp output and connecting it to the analog in, the arduino indeed saw a value between 0 and 1024.
In the source i did a mapping with a case statement to let the color of the number flow from bright red (full solar light intensity) to a dimmed white and passing a lot of colors in between.
To give the number something "extra" i decided to drill a hole and put in a movement sensor; this would be fun for visitors / postal guys to look at once they had passed my sensor. Hoping that it wouldn't annoy the people walking by I took the chance.
Find the result in the linked youtube video; I hope you like it as much as I liked building it.
- Cheers -