Overview
The Window was one of my first exhibit style devices. The goal of the project was to create something better than the average homebrew lighting setup, with a large focus on visual control and light diffusion for a more visually appealing object.
Project Goals
The project used 90° diffusion channels for the LED strips to allow for maximum diffusion off the walls. A primary focus on this project was good diffusion. The lights were easily visible during daytime, and at 20% brightness they were perfect at night. With some patterns, it was like having a digital fishtank the size of the wall.
Tech Breakdowns
The software controlling it was SignalRGB with mods created from SRGBmods to allow my Raspberry Pico to interface with SignalRGB.
The LEDs had their own power supply as well. This wiring job was quite bad, but it worked and was hidden behind my computer.
Most of the patterns used were made by other designers for SignalRGB. This was part of the benefit of why I went this direction software-wise, was the amount of support I would have, the audio reactive patterns as well, and a software I knew could achieve this when I started the project. I also wanted it to just have music reading from my computer, and the additional rendering power not being stuck to a microcontroller really shows in some of the patterns.
Conclusion
This was an excellent side project, but it's important to know of the large limitation in this setup... A computer was required to connect to it, and the control was dependent on a proprietary software interface I did not feel comfortable developing more for. This device was also not portable, and when I had to move unexpectedly a few months later, that was a sad project to say goodbye to. This is why many of my future projects have focused on portability, as well as also having an ability to show people!