New Guide: Build a NeoPixel Crystal Chandelier with Speed & Brightness Control

DIY crystal chandelier

Take a look at the latest guide from Erin St. Blaine: build a three tiered chandelier with hanging DIY paper-craft crystals that light up with pixels inside. Easily add your own custom animations using CircuitPython and the LED Animations Library. This guide takes animated lights a step further, adding a rotary encoder knob that controls the brightness or the animation speed of the pixels, and also acts as an on/off switch. From the guide:

Floating crystals and glowing lights are a match made in heaven. This project combines a wide variety of skills and tools into one lovely project. Make a gorgeous hanging lamp with sparkly beads, glowing crystals, live edge wood and of course, lots of NeoPixels.

My chandelier is unique, and designed to show my personal style. Since you, dear reader, have your very own unique style, this tutorial will focus on giving you the tools to design and create your own one-of-a-kind bespoke hanging lamp. This tutorial will provide source files and ideas, and give guidance on how the electronics fit together.

This tutorial will also get you started with customizing your own software animations. The sample code uses CircuitPython and the delightfully easy to use LED Animations Library by Kattni Rembor. This code gives you a framework that allows speed and brightness control using a rotary encoder knob, so you can adjust the lighting to suit any environment or mood.

See the full build tutorial here: https://learn.adafruit.com/neopixel-crystal-chandelier-with-circuitpython-animations-and-speed-control/overview

crystal chandelier

We can’t wait to see the creative lamp you build with NeoPixels and Circuit Python!

How to Make a Bluetooth Controlled Sims Plumbob #WearableWednesday

No surprises here, 8bitsandabyte has put up another great project on Hackster.io:

We’ll be recreating the diamond that floats above the Sim’s head, also known as a plumbob, and making it Bluetooth controlled so you can set the colour to reflect your mood!

Read more and see more on YouTube


Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

Best of Made in NYC Featuring a #RadioBonnet Tester #Adafruit @Adafruit

This is a Best of Made in NYC post, today’s post goes back to:
Made in NYC 1/16/2019 Featuring a #RadioBonnet Tester #Adafruit @Adafruit

Radio Bonnet tester (0:03)

Afternoon glow inside the PnP (0:37)

Beginnings of a Grand Central controlled robotic xylophone (0:46)

Grand Central boards in selective solder machine (0:55)

3D printing timelapse (1:05)

3D printed lamp using Bluefruit M0 Feather (1:21)

Andy’s desk of electronics (1:31)

DIY cellphone using FONA (1:37)

Stills of a solder paste tub being opened (1:51)

Winter sunset (2:04)

See more

Make a Galaxy Dog Jacket with #NeoPixels and #Feather #WearableWednesday

Nothing surprising here, just another super cute project from 8bitsandabyte on Hackster.io:

The first step is either buying or making a jacket for your dog to wear, to add the electronics to. In this case we opted to sew our own jacket because we wanted to challenge ourselves a bit, improve our sewing skills and pick an awesome galaxy themed fabric!

Read more and see more


Flora breadboard is Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!

Adafruit Weekly Editorial Round-Up: January 5th – January 11th, Thoughts for #CircuitPython2020

IINewImage 21 1 1 2


ADAFRUIT WEEKLY EDITORIAL ROUND-UP


We’ve got so much happening here at Adafruit that it’s not always easy to keep up! Don’t fret, we’ve got you covered. Each week we’ll be posting a handy round-up of what we’ve been up to, ranging from learn guides to blog articles, videos, and more.


BLOG

Adafruit blinka 2020 blog

#CircuitPython2020

This week was #CircuitPython2020 packed! We shared your thoughts, we shared our thoughts…we’re just so excited to see what 2020 will bring!

Check out all the posts here!

More BLOG:

Keeping with tradition, we covered quite a bit this past week. Here’s a kinda short nearing medium length list of highlights:


LEARN

Hero weather

PyPortal Retro Cases

Retro-inspired Enclosures for Adafruit PyPortal IoT Displays. This project is like a mini desktop PC that you can have on your desk and display all sorts of data. The ports are accessible on the side and there’s even a spot to hold a speaker.

The 3D printed enclosure is designed to snap fit so it’s easy to assemble and take apart.

See the full guide here!

More LEARN:

Browse all that’s new in the Adafruit Learning System here!

NEW GUIDE: A Bluetooth Controlled NeoPixel Lightbox #3DPrinting #AdafruitLearningSystem #CircuitPython #Adafruit #Feather #3DThursday @Adafruit @DAstels

A new guide is on the Adafruit Learning System: Bluetooth Controlled NeoPixel Lightbox

This guide describes how to build what’s commonly called a light table or lightbox. It places a light behind the guide sheets, writing paper, and more, making it much easier to see through. Light tables are also handy for slide photography, tracing, and reading film x-rays!

You can buy a simple one fairly inexpensively, or a professional quality one for much more. But that’s not what Makers do; we build our own!

This guide uses the Feather nRF52840 Express as the controller for the project. It provides plenty of processing power to work in CircuitPython and, more importantly, it has a solid Bluetooth capability. The parts are 3D printed.

See this new tutorial here.

led_strips_final.jpg

led_strips_tracing.jpg

Are you interested in using light boxes in your work or hobbies? Let us know in the comments below.

This #3dPrinting Cable Robot Uses #CRICKITFeatherWing and #Feather32u4

From André Nakonz on Hackster.io:

The basic idea of CaRo is to develop a cost-effective and easy to build robot. It is not a robotic arm that needs a lot of motors and a lot of material for a wide reach of action. CaRo is no bigger than a shoe box and still has a reach of action of several meters. The accuracy and reliability is not very high yet. CaRo is therefore currently regarded as a toy. On my homepage you can see what can become of CaRo.

Read more on Hackster.io or feaazibly.com and see more on YouTube

NEW GUIDE: Talking Musical NeoPixel Clock #AdafruitLearningSystem

Talking Musical NeoPixel Clock

A beautiful use of the 60 LED NeoPixel ring as a clock that also talks! This all new project uses the Adafruit Feather M0 Bluefruit LE board for both brains and Bluetooth communications. You can also add an optional infrared receiver to interact with the clock with a remote. The Swiss Army of clocks.

The guide has step by step instructions, full code written for the Arduino IDE, and wave files for the voice.

See this new guide in the Adafruit Learning System!