I built a giant red/blue bar graph to display the electoral vote at my house tonight. It uses 32 ShiftBrite RGB LED modules, two CSG-4M LED numerical displays, a Cubloc CB405 with Quick Start 1000 board, and an ACODE-300B Bluetooth module. I used Eric's code from Hackaday last night to scrape CNN's election results. The code runs on a small 400MHz Linux server I always have running for file storage and random scripting.

Here's how I did it:

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ShiftBrite RGB module doing its thing. I realized I didn't have any pictures of the modules lighting up in each color. Planning to get a datasheet written up within the next day or two.

Shifty VU Demo from Garrett Mace on Vimeo.

Here's a demo of the new Shifty VU operating. This is no longer feeding Winamp Data into a Cubloc; the audio signal is rectified, filtered, and amplified with an RC decay, then oversampled with an AVR ATmega128 and displayed as a bar graph. Currently no fancy presets, just red and blue, but I have lots of ideas. Fading orange neon, peak detector, variable speed chasers, etc. Feel free to post your own ideas below!  Read more»

I built these today. Despite appearances, no welding was required. That's all 1/8 inch hardboard and 3/4 inch square hardwood molding, hot glued together. Then I sealed, painted flat black, applied iron-powder paint in various locations, then applied rust agent in multiple layers to get a nice effect. Then I pulled some parts off the TechShop Wall O' Junk and glued them on for extra zing. The tubes contain 10 ShiftBrite modules each, and will be used as left and right VU channels.

I've been working on the LED array a few evenings this week, at TechShop. Most of the work is done, at least the part involving woodworking. I still need to drill 384 holes, paint everything white, then build about 75 circuit boards and wire everything up. Should be done in time for the Maker Faire if I get the controller finished this week. Then there's the control software, and web interface, and Winamp plugin, and the other projects....

This is the pre-alpha version of one of the VU columns that will be used as an example of ShiftBrite applications at Maker Faire this May. I've only got two LEDs in this one, the brightness corresponding to the current power of the left or right channel. If the power rises above a threshold, some of the green channel is mixed into both LEDs. The audio data is currently fed over a USB-RS232 converter from a custom Winamp plugin I wrote. The actual finished device will be a freestanding tube for the left and right channels, and 10 LEDs in each tube instead of two. There will be several color presets, like "warm neon", "fire", "spectrum", etc. The tube is a fluorescent protector tube from Home Depot lined with galvanized steel mesh from the same store.

Below: a newer version with laser-cut acrylic holder for 10 ShiftBrites, only five are installed right now.   Read more»

Over at Darker Technologies they're making good progress on the Maker Faire projects that we're exhibiting in the same booth this May. The first LED grow lamp array has been built and tested. It uses red and blue LEDs, since those are the wavelengths plants absorb (they reflect green, so no need to waste power emitting that color). He'll be testing the arrays on live plants this month, using other light sources as a control. If you're in the SF Bay Area this May, stop by the Maker Faire in San Mateo and check out all the great projects and exhibits! There's a lot to do! It's fun!

* Source code and Eagle PCB files: CapsLockerPCB&Code.zip *

Just in time for April Fool's Day! I built a device that has the potential to drive a computer user insane.

This device plugs into a USB port and implements a USB HID keyboard. Instead of doing anything useful, it waits between 30 seconds and 8 minutes and sends the scancode for the Caps Lock key. This will toggle the Caps Lock status on or off. Since the operating system controls the LED on the keyboard, the Caps Lock light also toggles. This makes it appear the user has accidentally pressed the Caps Lock key...until it happens 20 or 30 times and they get suspicious. Then they might see the Caps Lock light turn on by itself. Next is a sequence of reboots, bashing the keyboard on the desk, clicking through the Control Panel, possibly even replacing the keyboard. Unless they notice the tiny little device sitting in one of the USB ports on the back of their computer, nothing will help.  Read more»