rgbcubes - iot finder

Description

Acrylic cubes made from frosted acrylic illuminated by a single ws2812b led arranged on a string controlled by an ESP8266 with webservice to easily find it on the network.

Challenge: moodlight (any iot device) and smartphone app/web service - to find and control it.

Solution: custom rgb cubes lighted by ws2812b leds that look awesome and that can be easily controlled through a web interface provided by an ESP8266.

The solution Felix came up with one day - to find the cubes on our your network - is to simply code a web service that the lamp (ESP8266) connects to and sends its local IP.

You can then simply go to web service from your browser or phone and
it will redirect you to the lamps local IP.

License:
For rgbcubes and software we use the Unlicense which essentially sets all code and other content into public domain because we have more important things to do than dealing with licensing - like hacking on other cool projects.

Components

1 × acrylic 3mm wh17 or better yet polar white

1 × ws2812b leds on pcb saves a lot of work

1 × esp8266 dev board is cheap enaoug and has 3.3V regulator

1 × 3 pin male + female connectors when daisy chaining

1 × 5V power supply

Project Logs

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layouting mockup / makefu lamp build
Christian Stöveken • 04/17/2016 at 19:27 • 0 comments

such a nice mockup
behind the scenes - routed cabling slots
manual rework (not getting it right on the cnc mill is a good opportunity to use the manual router)
so much win:
mounted on white painted wooden plates gives a completely different look from the first installation.
light tests and first installation
Christian Stöveken • 04/13/2016 at 21:51 • 0 comments

some tests before our first wifi controllable led lamp installation.
Better drilling with Festool ... and Nadka.
looking good - notice the breadboard glued to the ceiling ... with the esp and ams1117 (5.5 -> 3.3V) regulator.
cube electronics
Christian Stöveken • 04/12/2016 at 23:45 • 0 comments

ws2812b on pcb for hassle free soldering.
4 pin connectors for +- 5V, signal and signal loop through if necessary for some setup.
Connectors should be protected against polarity reversal- otherwise I will always short sth.
helper (soldering) fairy
esp8266 breadboard test
all the glue
Christian Stöveken • 04/08/2016 at 11:49 • 0 comments

Acrifix (applied with a q-tip) works really good gluing the notched pieces.
Hot glue if you want to get it open ever again (here: top for access).
Gluing tool (perpendicularity)
some more gluing
first harvest:
lasercut the acrylic
Christian Stöveken • 04/06/2016 at 20:37 • 0 comments

First you have to design the lamp - in our case square boxes. Boxmaker to the rescue - or at least to jump start the notched boxes.
Some draft of one of the final lamps.
Then off to buy some acrylic...
... and put it in your hackerspaces' lasercutter (far cheaper than having the acrylic guy do it).
good material planning:
finding the right acrylic
Christian Stöveken • 04/05/2016 at 20:49 • 0 comments

we went to a local acrylic shop and asked for samples we liked without illumination.
then the selection followed
project start
Christian Stöveken • 04/04/2016 at 23:15 • 0 comments

Project start (2/2015)
Inspired by the brmlab (hackerspace prague) ledbar (project page) - these were made from cardboard and sandwich paper + some rgb led.

Felix wanted to build some rgb cubes.