I wrote on here a while ago about wanting to turn a tv remote into a MIDI controller using an arduino and an Infra-red receiver component...i came up with a new idea... how about making a midi controller out of a tv remote... but making the receiver really badass looking too...
so, i decided i would create an all new version of the project...
i wanted it to have alot of lights in the receiver so that there is some visual feedback for when buttons are pressed, as well as giving an indication of the values of midi parameters...
i rigged up some digital shift registers in a daisy chain and hooked the outputs up to RGB LEDs, and installed a library written by Elco Jacobs that allows me to pulse width modulate however many outputs i need through the shift registers... so, in laymans terms, i could control however many lights i need individually, and mix any color and brightness...
you can find more info about the ShiftPWM library here
... the thought of having a really trippy looking lit up pyramid that helps me make music seemed pretty appealing to me...so i set to work on it...
at first i made the design out of a Krave cereal box... i made a basic shield for the project and starting soldering together the shift registers... i got the whole thing wired up with 2 RGB LEDs (because thats all that will fit on one shift register alone) and when i uploaded the code, the lights and the shift registers were not working right... all the lights would light up whenever just one was supposed to...
i kept going over the code again and again, looking for problems with the soldering... but just couldn't find anything wrong... eventually i decided to go without having a whole bunch of tri color LEDs, and that it would be simpler to just do 2 RGB LEDs using the arduino's 6 digital PWM outputs......but then i thought, what if i use the arduino mega that has been sitting on my shelf doing nothing?... it has 12 digital PWM outputs built in already, and i started finding code online for making other digital pins produce pwm...i could get up to about 54 digital pwm outputs from the mega, and maybe by using the anolog outputs too... i could get another 16...
still though, thats only 70 outputs and thats only enough to control 23 RGB LEDs at the most...
i ended up opting to go the simpler route of just doing the two RGB LEDs with the arduino uno's built in digital PWM... just to save time...
i installed this into the cardboard pyramid i had made and once i had the arduino, the IR receiver and the RGB LEDS in place, i put a cardboard stencil i had made on the outside and taped a layer of paper around it tightly, creating a white minimalist pyramid...
i started coding it to light up the way i wanted it to, and when i got it working and ready to start programming the IR signals and midi functionality, i realized that the remote i had bought was not ideal... and that if i wrote code around the current remote i would probably just have to rewrite alot of code later on...
so far its only functional as a light fixture in the corner of my room... but i have big plans for this pyramid... stay tuned to see how it turns out...thanks for reading. subscribe and comment please. suggestions and feedback appreciated.
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