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Light Photography Robot

Use this robot and a camera with a long exposure to create some stunning images that are painted with light from an led matrix

hacker-houseHacker House
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5 comments
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  • Description
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  • Components 8
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  • Discussion 5
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hardware
completed project
Software
raspberry pi LEDS harware adafruit neopixels

This project was created on 03/16/2017 and last updated 5 years ago.

Description

Did you know that you can make light paintings with a long exposure camera? Light painting is a photographic technique in which exposures are made by moving a hand-held light source while taking a long exposure photograph. We take this a step further by finely controlling the light source's movement with a stepper motor driven rover. The results are stunning. The project consists of a Raspberry Pi 3, two stepper motors, and a Neopixel LED matrix. It can easily be recreated with a 3D printer and all of the code is provided.

Here are some examples of normal light photography
Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vCaiF9DSxU
Roomba art: https://www.google.com/search?q=light+roomba&espv

Find all the 3D printable files for this project on our Patreon:

Details

Components

  • 2 × Nema-17 200 steps/rev Stepper Motors https://www.adafruit.com/products/324
  • 2 × Stepper Motor Drivers https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-tb6612-h-bridge-dc-stepper-motor-driver-breakout
  • 1 × Raspberry Pi 3 https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/raspberry-pi-3-model-b/
  • 1 × Neopixel 8x8 LED Matrix https://www.adafruit.com/product/1487
  • 1 × Female Jumper Wires https://www.adafruit.com/products/794

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Morning.Star wrote 03/16/2017 at 19:47 • point

Wow. I've seen performance art done with LEDs and long exposure. This is a whole new level, outstanding!

  Are you sure? yes | no

davedarko wrote 03/16/2017 at 19:12 • point

Wuaaah, this is awesome! I've always wanted a swarm of those and couldn't afford them. Never thought about this though!

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Eric Hertz wrote 03/18/2017 at 12:21 • point

hmmm moving led-grids... I know of a particular system which likes to tear itself apart, wonder if long-exposure would reduce its fatigue ;)

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davedarko wrote 03/18/2017 at 12:35 • point

Right. That thing. Some day :)

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zakqwy wrote 03/16/2017 at 17:08 • point

This is awesome! Really impressed by the interframe registration accuracy. 

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