Lighting Projects sharing

I created few LED Lighting projects and would like to share them with the community.
The required hardware is:

  • Lighting Controller is Pixelblaze (https://electromage.com/).
  • All LED Strips/Matrix are based on WS2812b (or similar) addressable LEDs.
    NOTE: Pixelblaze does not support regular RGB(WW) LED strips but supports
    many various addressable LEDs such as WS2812b. The advantage is - each
    LED could be individually controlled. Of course, it is possible to use these
    addressable LED Strips/Matrix as a regular RGB(WW) strips but not vice versa.
  • Thanks to @zranger1 there is a HE Driver for the Pixleblaze:
    [RELEASE] Pixelblaze addressable LED Controller Driver v1.00
    So, integration with HE is very easy and straight forward. Pixelblaze is a WiFi device
    but all controls are local, no any Internet/Cloud services are required.

Pixelblaze projects are DIY. So some soldering and assembly skills are required.
Pixelblaze also required some programming but there are tons of ready to go
lighting patterns already available. Plus Pixelblaze community is very helpful.
The final results are outstanding.
As of today all my LED Strips are controlled by Pixelblaze and integrated with HE.

I don't want to make this initial post too long and populated with Pixelblaze
codes, HE RM rules, pictures and videos
But if anybody is interested in any of my projects I will be happy to shear
everything in order to reproduce them. Simply please let me know which
project you want to reproduce.

Here is a list of my current Pixelblaze/HE LED lighting projects.
(Most complicated are listed first.)

  1. Scrolling Text and Info Display
    This one displays current values in 4 sec interval:

    • CO2 Level;
    • Internal Temperature;
    • External Temperature;
    • Internal Humidity;
    • External Humidity;

    When front door is opened from outside it displays scrolling welcome message for 30 sec.
    In theory it can display anything you want. Number of displayed parameters is unlimited
    but displaying too many different parameters become annoying instead of being helpful.
    So, it is limited to 5. Also scrolling for the displaying is not used for the same reason.
    Display Matrix is 2 of 8x32 LED Matrix something like this one:
    https://www.amazon.com/BTF-LIGHTING-Individual-Addressable-Flexible-Controllers/dp/B088BTXHRG/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=35V1B3AH8KD4E&keywords=8x32+led+matrix&qid=1649521282&sprefix=8x32+led+mat%2Caps%2C73&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzMFk1Q0lSN1hHVk9VJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNTkzNTAxNlFVWVZUNTY0RTdKJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTA2MjU4MDExQVZFMTlYWFRaTE8md2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl
    Of course, you must have all related Sensors already integrated with HE.

  2. Kitchen Undercounter LED Lighting.
    I leave in old apartment building. Unfortunately all Kitchen Outlets are on the same
    20A circuit. Of course, I cannot turn on power hungry appliances such as Microwave,
    Kettle, Coffee Maker at the same time. So, each of these things are controlled by
    Zigbee Sengled Smart Plug with power reporting capability. HE knows what is
    already turned On and disables all other power hungry appliances from being accidentally
    turning On. Thanks to Pixleblaze, under cabinet LED Strip shows in colors what is
    already running (red), what is disabled (blue) and what still could be turned On (green).
    Normal under cabinet lighting is entire strip warm white (2700K).

  3. Lighted Picture frame.
    This simply runs nice lighting pattern during day time.
    LED Strip is mounted behind picture frame.

  4. Balcony Lighting.
    Normally the entire strip is warm white color (2700K).
    On Holidays it runs set of different lighting patterns.

  5. Living Room lighting.
    This one runs a static lighting pattern (nothing is blinking and moving)
    but strip segments have different colors.

As I already mentioned, I will be happy to provide more details for each project
described above.

4 Likes

This sounds really neat - do you have any photos/videos of what you’ve done? I’m trying to find a simple way to put lights around our pool fence, and I was thinking about using pixels to do so instead of the IKEA LED string lights I used last time. I was looking at something like the Rextin WS2811 Pixels Digital Addressable LED String Lights Waterproof RGB Full Color 12mm DC 5V on Amazon (I can’t seem to grab the link using my iPad).

No, I did not take any pictures and/or photos because I don't know what exactly to present.
Everything is pretty much static except for the Message Board (Scrolling Text).

For the Swimming Pool lighting do not use any 5V strips. They need very thick wires and
multiple points of power injection. As a minimum use 12V Pixel Strips or even 24V.
The downside for 24V Pixel Strip is - each single Pixel is actually 6 sequential LEDs.
But I guess, for the Swimming Pool lighting project this should be OK.

Pixelblaze is very flexible by itself. You will need to pre-programm it with few Patterns.
Than you will be able to control this toy from Hubitat.

Ah I see. So it looks to me like Pixelblaze only outputs 5V? Is that correct? If so, how would I use 12V power? Sorry for the silly questions- just trying to learn how this stuff works and I’m a bit of a newbie. Thanks for your help!

5V is required to power on Pixelblaze itself. And the "Data" control signal is also 5V.
Strip could be any voltage. I am using 5V, 12V and 24V Pixel strips. All these strips are
using 5V Data Signal regardless what voltage is used for powering LEDs.
In case say 24V Strip (this one will be easier to power on for the entire Swimming Pool
perimeter) you will need the appropriate main 24V PS plus very small 24v-to-5V down
converter to power on Pixelblaze. Data Signal from Pixelblaze will be good to control Strip.

So I bought a bunch of pixels today for Prime Day - I’m thinking about doing a line of them around my pool fence and then doing a strip of lights actually in the pool running the perimeter at the top (out of the water). My question is, will I need 2 pixelbase devices to run these separately? Or if I buy an add on, would that run them separately? Thanks for any advice you can offer on this.

You can run really big number (I forgot the exact number but it is in few thousands) of Pixel LEDs
from single Pixel Blaze. The HE Driver actually allowed to split single strip into few virtually
separated strips but I did not try this myself so, I cannot tell you how this will work.
if this is me, I will rather use separate PixelBlaze devices specifically if you want to run
different Pattern on each segment.

For this extremely long run most likely you will need to do power injection for each 8-10ft
of strip. what voltage strips are (5V, 12V or 24V)? The lower voltage is more injection points
will need and wires must be fatter.

I got 12v strips because I couldn’t find any 24v that were ip67 waterproof rated. From what I could see, it looks like I might need to add power injection somewhere along the line, and I just realized the location of my power will be the furthest point from the start of the LED signal start for the fence due to where the gate is located.

I’m working on getting supplies for this while on vacation, and I was wondering if you have any advice for an outdoor enclosure. Do I need a vented one due to heat from the power supplies? I’ve had a hard time finding any information about this in my searches online. Thanks for all of your help; it is greatly appreciated!

Unfortunately I cannot suggest you any good solution for the outdoor PS version.
Please keep in mind, to pick up a very right PS you will need to know what is a max current
for the Strip when all LEDs are in full brightness and increase this value by 20-25%.
Most likely this never will be a case. But it is what it is. To do things right you absolutely
have to account for the worst possible case. This is a golden rule of electronics.