Because... of things... Solarbotics didn't do a booth or official presence at this year's Bay Area MakerFaire. We opted to do something fun this time, building a custom just-for-the-fair piece of sorta-interactive LED artwork. Following on the success of the quickie LED floor mandala resting area we did at the NYC MF, we turned it […]
3D Printed Treetop Star
Solar botics
December 9, 2014
Initially inspired by the Moravian Star on Instructables and the fact that we now carry all kinds of 3D printing filament, we decided to make one of our own glowy holiday star. We have used this thing as source files to create a similar treetop decoration of our own.
After some trial and error (due to the Slicer not cooperating)...
...we printed a whole forest of perfect wintery spiky star-ends.
And, well, we just had to have someone live there for a bit. In this case, a snowman:
Our addressable 5mm LEDs were well suited to light this contraption. We drilled a hole in the bottom of each spike..
..to fit the LED's domed part:
And then wired everything up. It wasn't pretty but the WS2812 LED that we used made it much easier than a conventional RGB LED: rather than 3 separate channels, the WS2812 LED only has a data in and data out. Chain them all together and they work like a charm!
And here's the final product, ready to light up our office with wonderful glowing lights!
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Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.
Please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov for more information. This item was manufactured prior to August 31, 2018.