Kodi Community Forum
DIY Ambient Lighting - Printable Version

+- Kodi Community Forum (https://forum.kodi.tv)
+-- Forum: Discussions (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=222)
+--- Forum: Kodi related discussions (https://forum.kodi.tv/forumdisplay.php?fid=6)
+--- Thread: DIY Ambient Lighting (/showthread.php?tid=110852)

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11


- technocoma - 2011-09-27

I will try to right up a guide soon as I get a chance, bit busier than I thought I would be atm.

I'm using windows (to the person that asked about it)

The LED strips for my 37" it was 2M total LED strips and yes you can use multi strips (I use 4) its only way to get the colours to change at different places on screen.


- User 103576 - 2011-10-06

This is awesome. I found a not-so-easy to read tutorial here:

http://siliconrepublic.blogspot.com/2011/02/arduino-based-pc-ambient-lighting.html

I don't understand how to make the lighting move around though. Any proper tutorials would be appreciated Big Grin

EDIT: A non-DIY pricey alternative:
http://gamesharkstore.ca/viewItem.asp?idProduct=5140&idCategory=262


- FreakinAye - 2011-10-06

Kn0wn1 Wrote:This is awesome. I found a not-so-easy to read tutorial here:

http://siliconrepublic.blogspot.com/2011/02/arduino-based-pc-ambient-lighting.html

I don't understand how to make the lighting move around though. Any proper tutorials would be appreciated Big Grin

the basic idea is that you're sampling multiple areas of the screen, and sending the values to the arduino as multiple channels, which uses 3x PWM pins on the arduino for each area you want to sample (RGB).

So with a standard arduino you get 6 PWM pins = 2 independent RGB channels. You can scan and send 2 areas of the screen to the arduino which powers two sets of lights with different values (left and right side of the screen, for example)

With an arduino mega you get 12PWM pins = 4 RGB channels so you can sample 4 areas of the screen (4 quandrants, for example)


- guwu - 2011-10-07

I'm just setting up something similar using the Atmolight hardware (atmolight.de) which is a 4 channel LED controller (there is also a 8 channel version available from the same guy). At the moment it is working with my Vu+ Duo satellite receiver and the effect is just awesome!

All in all I paid about 90,-€ for the whole setup including about 3m of 60 LEDs/m RGB stripes for my 42" Panasonic plasma tv and it was well worth the money. You can find a short clip of my setup on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl9SFWxCS5w&sns=em.


- User 103576 - 2011-10-07

guwu Wrote:I'm just setting up something similar using the Atmolight hardware (atmolight.de) which is a 4 channel LED controller (there is also a 8 channel version available from the same guy). At the moment it is working with my Vu+ Duo satellite receiver and the effect is just awesome!

All in all I paid about 90,-€ for the whole setup including about 3m of 60 LEDs/m RGB stripes for my 42" Panasonic plasma tv and it was well worth the money. You can find a short clip of my setup on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tl9SFWxCS5w&sns=em.


I love the look, but it seems like the top and sides are always blue/purple, and the bottom is always red/purple. Maybe its just the cam, or that segment of video?


- guwu - 2011-10-07

Kn0wn1 Wrote:I love the look, but it seems like the top and sides are always blue/purple, and the bottom is always red/purple. Maybe its just the cam, or that segment of video?

It's a combination of both, I guess Wink In reality everything looks smooth and the colors are matching the screen beautifully Smile


- FreakinAye - 2011-10-07

In case you haven't seen it, Lady Ada put out a rather simple DIY ambilight
http://ladyada.net/make/adalight/

Uses addressable LED strips and a processing script to sample the screen areas. Something like a net top is not powerful enough for this in her testing


- MrHenky - 2011-10-11

bobo1on1 Wrote:Guess who developed boblight Smile

Hello Bob,

I'm going to get the adalight stuff. Is boblight working with that one too? It's using a Arduino with a Atmega328 Microcontroller. Since boblight is supposed to work with Atmolight (Atmega8) or Karatelight I just want to get sure, that is also going to work with Adalight.

Best regards
Henk


- aptalca - 2011-10-11

FreakinAye Wrote:In case you haven't seen it, Lady Ada put out a rather simple DIY ambilight
http://ladyada.net/make/adalight/

Uses addressable LED strips and a processing script to sample the screen areas. Something like a net top is not powerful enough for this in her testing

Thanks for the link.

That's a pretty awesome guide. The only thing I am curious about is what the cpu usage is like at 1080p on a somewhat underpowered htpc such as e350 (In the guide they say an older atom barely did 13fps at 800x600 and core2 based macbook air got barely 30fps at 800x600).

In their forums, someone wrote cpu usage is very low, but he is using an i7 Huh
Not really a good comparison example for me

I guess if the underclocked core2 macbook air struggles, there is no hope for e350 either?? What about the AMD A4 I wonder?


- bobo1on1 - 2011-10-11

MrHenky Wrote:Hello Bob,

I'm going to get the adalight stuff. Is boblight working with that one too? It's using a Arduino with a Atmega328 Microcontroller. Since boblight is supposed to work with Atmolight (Atmega8) or Karatelight I just want to get sure, that is also going to work with Adalight.

Best regards
Henk

The protocol described at https://github.com/adafruit/Adalight/blob/master/Arduino/LEDstream/LEDstream.pde#L42 might be compatible with boblightd, if a custom boblight.conf is used, and as long as you use boblight from http://code.google.com/p/boblight/ (the old boblight doesn't support a custom prefix).
The only thing I'm not sure about is the checksum value, it says "high byte XOR low byte XOR 0x55", but doesn't specify the high and low bytes of what exactly, if it's the high and low bytes of the number of leds then it should work with boblight, since the number of leds is static.
If that fails I could always add custom support for adalight.

aptalca Wrote:Thanks for the link.

That's a pretty awesome guide. The only thing I am curious about is what the cpu usage is like at 1080p on a somewhat underpowered htpc such as e350 (In the guide they say an older atom barely did 13fps at 800x600 and core2 based macbook air got barely 30fps at 800x600).

In their forums, someone wrote cpu usage is very low, but he is using an i7 Huh
Not really a good comparison example for me

I guess if the underclocked core2 macbook air struggles, there is no hope for e350 either?? What about the AMD A4 I wonder?

I suggest just trying it out, you should be able to run the software without having any hardware attached, as long as you have a serial port to write to.


- Swifty - 2011-10-12

aptalca Wrote:Thanks for the link.

That's a pretty awesome guide. The only thing I am curious about is what the cpu usage is like at 1080p on a somewhat underpowered htpc such as e350 (In the guide they say an older atom barely did 13fps at 800x600 and core2 based macbook air got barely 30fps at 800x600).

In their forums, someone wrote cpu usage is very low, but he is using an i7 Huh
Not really a good comparison example for me

I guess if the underclocked core2 macbook air struggles, there is no hope for e350 either?? What about the AMD A4 I wonder?

I'm using boblight on an ion2 (revo r3610) and it works just fine with 1080p, that's scanning 9 areas to drive 9 different led strips too... Great job bob!

now we just need native xbmc support Wink hehe


- bobo1on1 - 2011-10-14

I have a working boblight addon at https://github.com/bobo1on1/script.xbmc.boblight (linux only).
You need to make a script.xbmc.boblight directory in ~/.xbmc/addons then copy in the addon.xml and the default.py

The addon is barely functional, you can't turn it off from XBMC and you have to adjust the boblight settings by editing default.py and then restart XBMC.


- illiac4 - 2011-10-14

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=101406&highlight=Ambilight

This is the same 4 channel.
For controlling boblight you can use scripts and call them with executor plugin.

Ambilight easier to build would be based on ws2801 stripes. Less soldering but i think there is no .pde for arduino which is compatible with boblight.
Ws2801 uses only four wires and it is easier to build more channels, because every part which contains ws2801 chip can be driven as one channel.
Also i can not see at which bits are ws2081 working, but i think it is 8bit so in this case TLC from TI is better.


Cheers


- markhoney - 2011-10-16

In case anyone's interested, I'm just finishing up a sketch for the Rainbowduino (an Arduino clone for driving LEDs) that will support the boblight, atmo and maybe some other protocols with up to 8 bit colour. It's also able to be placed into several different modes where it gradually changes colours for mood lighting, and a mode where it just turns on all LEDs (for generic white backlighting).

The reason I went for a Rainbowduino is that out of the box it can easily drive 8 1/2 metre RGB LED strips, and mine is currently being powered from my PC's internal power supply via a power molex connection (using the 12v feed). The LEDs are attached via some CAT6 cable, as this was what I had lying around.

Once I've finished, I'll upload the source to github and maybe post some pictures and a wiring guide -but in all it's pretty straightforward to put together.


- cloudspear - 2011-10-17

markhoney Wrote:In case anyone's interested, I'm just finishing up a sketch for the Rainbowduino (an Arduino clone for driving LEDs) that will support the boblight, atmo and maybe some other protocols with up to 8 bit colour. It's also able to be placed into several different modes where it gradually changes colours for mood lighting, and a mode where it just turns on all LEDs (for generic white backlighting).

The reason I went for a Rainbowduino is that out of the box it can easily drive 8 1/2 metre RGB LED strips, and mine is currently being powered from my PC's internal power supply via a power molex connection (using the 12v feed). The LEDs are attached via some CAT6 cable, as this was what I had lying around.

Once I've finished, I'll upload the source to github and maybe post some pictures and a wiring guide -but in all it's pretty straightforward to put together.


Please post up your guide. Will your method need any soldering? Thanks.