It's great when you can build something yourself and eliminate the "planned obsolescence" or "designed to a price point" that plagues any consumer products you can buy. Plus, gain the benefit of being able to configure it exactly to your own liking. Great job.
That is really well made! Congratulations! If it were me, I'd add some transparent nail polish onto the electrical pads so any minor water ingress doesn't cause corrosion.
A few years ago I decided to do the same thing, as the Chinese ones last a winter at best, mine were based around the 328P-AU MCUs when they were about a quid each ! suffice to say the price went mental and they never got past KICAD. Awesome design and a Merry Christmas to you and yours !
I would have used some form of conformal coating on the pcb's, damp pcb and electrics never worķ well together. Does the accelerator help with reducing the out gassing of the super glue fogging the inside of the tube?
Hope your neighbours have very good sunglasses (or other eye protection) - because that is very bright and flashy. Las Vegas comet to mind. Except from that nice project.
Wow, that's an expensive and labor intensive way to do it. Get WS2812 (or better WS2815 12V) LED tape (strip) that has adhesive on the back, and glue two pieces together back to back. Run one wire from the data out pin at the bottom back to the top and glue that between the strips. Put that into a 1" PEX pipe cut to length, add waterproof cable gland on top, and cap at the bottom. One controller for the whole string, not one in every tube! You can make a small PCB to go at the top of the tube to amplify the signal coming off the end of that tube before it goes to the next one. Just a few NAND gates paralleled together works well.
So you have 10 dollars of printed parts on each tube, and how much did the acrylic cost? When I built meteor tubes a few years ago, acrylic tubes were really expensive. PEX is cheap, and the white tube diffuses the LEDs which makes them look smoother.
From my own experience with those LED's, I wouldn't have made the economy of the resistance in de data line and most of all, the decoupling cap.... We're talking about pennies against stability and longevity of the LED's...
You made a really nice looking set of festive decorations! Have you though of comparing notes with David Plummer @DavesGarage about driving strings of addressable LEDs? He seems very passionate about the topic and he worked extensively on it.
It's great when you can build something yourself and eliminate the "planned obsolescence" or "designed to a price point" that plagues any consumer products you can buy. Plus, gain the benefit of being able to configure it exactly to your own liking. Great job.
Very nice project Steve, the final result is great!
Wow, the end result is stunning!
That is really well made! Congratulations! If it were me, I'd add some transparent nail polish onto the electrical pads so any minor water ingress doesn't cause corrosion.
Another amazing Xmas project. This one is truly spectacular. Thanks for sharing. Merry Xmas!
Awesome I've been thinking about this for years. Nicley executed as usual steve
Thank you for sharing your project, Steve. Merry Christmas to you and your family. 🎄🎄
It was a JOY watching you solder each and every pin of the ESP.. This is going onto my resume. Just saying Thank you for the video. You RoCk!
love it! thanks for sharing
Wow, very very nice!!! Merry Christmas to you and everyone else too. 🙂 🎄🎅🌟
A few years ago I decided to do the same thing, as the Chinese ones last a winter at best, mine were based around the 328P-AU MCUs when they were about a quid each ! suffice to say the price went mental and they never got past KICAD. Awesome design and a Merry Christmas to you and yours !
Wait a second...did Steve just grow a third hand in 3:35-3:47?
The tweezers are heavy enough to hold the ESP32 down by themselves
I would have used some form of conformal coating on the pcb's, damp pcb and electrics never worķ well together.
Does the accelerator help with reducing the out gassing of the super glue fogging the inside of the tube?
Hope your neighbours have very good sunglasses (or other eye protection) - because that is very bright and flashy. Las Vegas comet to mind. Except from that nice project.
very nicely done as these are addressable i would expect that these could be added to an animation program ?
Great lighting effect. I made some a few years back but used 5050 LEDs onto a 50cm PCB they looked ok as I dint want double sided effect 👍
Great project! Stunning results.
Do you have the schematic available? Would like to see the ESP32 part.
I have a minor modification to make, but I'll add it as a shareable project.
Are gerbers, bom, etc available? Wouldn't mind building some of these for next year. Nice work!
I'll add it to the PCBWay community when I've made a minor modification for the capacitor.
Do you have a link for the 2 pin T's and cables? I used the same description as shown and get nothing like those.
It's this range from the Widsey store. Don't use for mains though, you end up with live male connectors! s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_olm0ae3
Very festive
Wow, that's an expensive and labor intensive way to do it. Get WS2812 (or better WS2815 12V) LED tape (strip) that has adhesive on the back, and glue two pieces together back to back. Run one wire from the data out pin at the bottom back to the top and glue that between the strips. Put that into a 1" PEX pipe cut to length, add waterproof cable gland on top, and cap at the bottom. One controller for the whole string, not one in every tube! You can make a small PCB to go at the top of the tube to amplify the signal coming off the end of that tube before it goes to the next one. Just a few NAND gates paralleled together works well.
So you have 10 dollars of printed parts on each tube, and how much did the acrylic cost? When I built meteor tubes a few years ago, acrylic tubes were really expensive. PEX is cheap, and the white tube diffuses the LEDs which makes them look smoother.
I did a test with some LED strips, but the SMD LEDs didn't give the right effect that I was after. The 360 degree view from these is really effective.
wow steve these are fantastic. is there any way i can order 50? these would be perfect for my garden!
I'll share the project on PCBWay community, They can assemble the PCBs also.
@@sdgelectronics that would be awesome. Keep up the fantastic work 💪
From my own experience with those LED's, I wouldn't have made the economy of the resistance in de data line and most of all, the decoupling cap.... We're talking about pennies against stability and longevity of the LED's...
Awesome project. How much would it cost to Build this project?
There's a few optimisations to make, these were quite expensive overall!
You made a really nice looking set of festive decorations!
Have you though of comparing notes with David Plummer @DavesGarage about driving strings of addressable LEDs? He seems very passionate about the topic and he worked extensively on it.