Build your own modular wireless illumination system

If you’ve been to my site before then you may have read how I’m ashamed of my 3D printer and keep it in a closet where all shameful 3D printers and children should be kept. But don’t tell child services I said that, they take this kind of thing very seriously and they may take my child away from me. Since she’s getting ready to move in with her fiance that would really piss her off and she hits really hard. I kid about the children, they should not be kept in closets. They should be kept in the basement. That’s usually where the PS4/Xbox and beer is anyway, so they usually want to be there.

But I digress.

Closet Case

Because my printer is in a closet and I want to be able to remotely watch the print taking place because it’s in a closet and I don’t want to stand in a closet while something prints, I need to have light to illuminate the printer so the webcam I have pointed at it with the adjustable webcam positioner I created

• My first 3D project – Part 1 – Web Cam Positioner
• My first 3D project – Part 2 – Web Cam positioner a ball(sy) joint
• My first 3D project – “Disneyland is fun. This is not fun.”
• My first 3D project – So refined, more refined than anything else. The most refined.
• My First 3D project – part 4 – Hold me down
• My First 3D project – part 5 – Good enough for government work.

can capture the print process and let me know when I have to run from whatever comfortable place I’m at to stop the print, cuss about something going wrong, clean the printer bed, check the nozzle, and then start it all over again after placing the failed print results in its own special place.

I could turn the light on in the closet. Oh, ya. I could turn the light on in the closet. Never mind and thank you for reading!

Let there be light

Ha, that would be easy but where’s the fun, challenge, frustration and reason for blood pressure medicine in using the light that’s already there? None, I tell you NONE!

Sorry I yelled, got a little too excited sometimes. Wait until the next season of Dorohedoro comes out. I’ll be like, woohoo, yea and then I will loose an entire day or night watching it.

But back to the topic at hand. I figured I’d use some of the 3 Watt LEDs I got for a reason I can no longer remember to make a lamp I can turn on/off with the Raspberry Pi through Octoprint. That way I can turn it on only when I need it. I justify this effort by telling myself – and now you – that it’s more energy efficient and much more complicated than just using the light that’s already there.

I want the lamps a little bit away from where the Pi is so I considered my options. I could have created a simple board with the TIP120, power and the control pin in on one side, and a plug for power going out on the other. Then mount the LEDs to a board. and allow for a long power wire. But, as you can imagine, that’s just too sensible and straightforward. So, how can this be made more complicated? Wireless communications!

I went with a modular design, mostly because I had already soldered the lamps to a board and the other stuff wouldn’t fit any longer. But, it turned out to be a good thing. I now have a programmable platform for remote controlling anything that can be controlled with the output of an Arduino. So, the final result is a controller, which I can communicate via magic, also known as “radio waves” and a lamp module.

The lamp module consists of 3 3Watt LEDs, a TIP120 Darlington transistor, a 5 Watt 2 Ohm resistor, a 1K .25 Watt resistor, some wire, and a couple of pins on a prototype board. Much power, more than a Rapberry Pi or Arduino can handle, goes into the LEDs and the TIP120 allows a Pi or Arduino low power 5V pin to turn it on or off. I’ll be following this post up with the details of how I built this and the other components I’ll be describing.

Pinochio

Not the lying part the “look ma no strings” part.

I had been messing around using Bluetooth and thought that might be the way to go. But Bluetooth is so touchy with the required pairing and it’s point to point, so only 1 device can talk to 1 other device at a time. Then I remembered I had a couple of NRF24L01 modules I got a while ago and figured this was as good a use as any for them.

I created a “simple” Arduino Nano-based solution that supports a couple of commands, “On”, “Off”, “Blink” and based on the command it gets puts a digital pin high or low. Another nano was used to send the command and I’m able to turn the lamp on and off and make it blink!

I soldered up a prototype board where I can plug in an Arduino Nano, a buck converter (I originally soldered one to the board but I did something and burned it up and so I created a socket for it since I’m sure to burn up more) and a socket for the RF24L01 module. I rounded it off with some input and output pins and so I could drive the whole thing with a larger power supply, I’m using a repurposed 12V, I added an LM7805 to provide consistent 5V to the Arduino. The Arduino can also be run from USB. A couple of small switches and I had a platform for an Arduino Nano-based wireless communication whatsamajigit.

George Forman

Boxing reference, this section is about the box I made for the controller and I’m old, so George Forman.

It’s not pretty so I printed a small project box to hide my poor soldering and design skills. Those of you who read my Webcam Positioner posts will know that I almost never get something to print right the first time. But in this case, I did. Yes, I was as surprised as you but I designed the box and a sliding lid and printed it. And, to my surprise, the print went well! The lid slides on and is snug enough it doesn’t slide off. The openings for the USB connector and NRF24L01 antenna were right, it just freakin’ worked. It’s not perfect, but it works and doesn’t look bad.

But just to keep things consistent, I hacked together a ridiculous mount from parts in my box of discarded and failed projects so as to not disappoint.

Keep them comming back for more

OK, so this was tantalizing and not particulaly useful for anyone who wants to do something similar. That’s the point of my blog, of course, to be pointeless and not much use to anyone.

Wait, no, that doesn’t sound right. Oh, right that’s my job and why I do this blog. This is my way to do something pointful – doesn’t sound right. Here are a bunch of words that say what I mean – and useful (I’m being loose with the definition of useful.)

I will follow this up with detailed posts on the lamp module, the whatsamajigit, and printing the box.

Final Thoughts

This has an unnecessary amount of complexity to solve a simple problem that doesn’t even exist (remember, there’s a light in the closet already) but it has been fun. And by fun I mean frustrating. I learned quite a bit though, including considerably improving my desoldering skills.

When I was done I also thought it would be nice to have have a standard PCB for the controller so I looked into it. You can get PCBs made pretty cheap at JLB PCB. But, and this is a Kardashian sized but, you have to design the board which is not as easy as I thought it would be. I may give it a try though, I like the idea of getting my own PCB boards I can put my name on.