I want to share with the community the process of designing custom strobe/spot lights for a public art project.
First of all, this is my lab in Amsterdam, which I share with another artist: TeZ. Him and other temporary collaborators also contributed to the project:
We designed from scratch 20 modules with these characteristics:
- 50 WATT RGB LED
- Wireless controllable
- 24v inputs
- Precise synchronous strobes
Let’s start from the PCBs:
Stupid, brainless MOSFET design (IRLZ34N), stripped down to the minimum (probably too much) based on D1 mini esp32.
Turns out it missed pull-down resistors for each MOSFET that had to be soldered free-style…
Somehow it worked out, at least for flickering, the circuit turned out precise, even if far away to be optimized to drive the LEDs.
Second step 3d printed waterproof enclosure.
Gave some headaches but solved with an o-ring enclosure for the transparent acrylic.
Software and Synchronization:
After some research, we used simple timers coded into ESP32 Arduino environment, synchronized through a custom NTP server on a laptop.
Laptop and modules communicate wirelessly through OSC protocol.
We created a custom hidden network for it with a dedicated router and extra industrial repeaters for outdoor use.
Still not happy with the 20 modules, we also built a washer based on the same design:
Not really related to the light design, but we also built a wireless controller for a three-phase inverter, which controlled a powerful pump that was at the core of the project:
In fact, the final outcome can be described as a light fountain:
If anybody is interested in knowing more, I would be happy to share schematics, codes, 3dmodels, TouchDesigner patches for final controls, and more…
For a clearer picture of the finished project you can check this link: