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KenV99 · (This post was last modified: 2014-01-07, 16:40 by KenV99.)

Hi,

I just wanted to share some video of my Ambilight clone setup. I thought some folks with non-ideal environments might be interested in seeing. Overall I am quite pleased despite the fact that my monitor is not mounted on a white wall and I have a wider bezel.

I am running XBMC 12.3 on W7x64 (i7 920, 8Gb RAM, GTX 600), with AmbiBox in the background going to an Arduino Leonardo linked to a WS2801 strip with 150 LEDs spread over 5m. The AmbiBox plugin for XBMC automatically switches from screen edge capture mode to ColorMusic mode when you launch music, but can be overridden simply with a key combination that I programmed to my remote. My display is a 60" Pioneer Kuro.

The first couple of minutes of video just shows the setup. Then there is demo showing the screen capture feature with the intro to Game of Thrones. This is followed by a demo of the ColorMusic feature where different LED zones light based on frequency bands. Unfortunately no sophisticated beat detection algorithms yet.
Finally, there is a demo where I use XBMC to run WinAmp as an external player to that I can use MilkDrop 2 visualizations. This is the best part.

Full video link here:http://youtu.be/VQXy1lPIb9s
Link to the last part with MilkDrop here: http://youtu.be/VQXy1lPIb9s?t=6m8s

Setup in daylight:

Snapshot with ambient lighting:

joelbaby · 2014-01-07, 16:41

That's looks great. Did you use all 5m of the led strip?

KenV99 · 2014-01-07, 16:42

(2014-01-07, 16:41)joelbaby Wrote: That's looks great. Did you use all 5m of the led strip?

Thank you!

There are 10 LED's that overlap, so 140 of 150...

outtamyway24 · 2014-01-14, 05:17

While I love me an old fashioned theater room, I feel like the more challenging setups are the ones like your's where you have to make it work in a living room without ideal circumstances. Job well done.

KenV99 · 2014-01-14, 19:08

(2014-01-14, 05:17)outtamyway24 Wrote: While I love me an old fashioned theater room, I feel like the more challenging setups are the ones like your's where you have to make it work in a living room without ideal circumstances. Job well done.

Thanks. For myself, I have neither the room in my basement or any compelling reason to construct a separate room as a home theater. I like trying to have the best I can do in a living space that I am using for everyday life. The only real compromise I end up making right now is with side speakers. Maybe if I ever decide I need to go the projector route, then I'll feel the need for a separate room.

Without a more enclosed space like in a theater room, I think that the ambient lighting is possibly more important. With the lights down in my room without the new lighting, you are kind of staring at a screen surrounded by black space, with nothing really reflecting any light from the screen. With the lighting, that side of the room is lighter and to go along with the Philips claims, I find it less fatiguing and more engaging to watch.

nickr · 2014-01-16, 07:31

@KenV99 - I have watched your video and I must say, very cool! The 5m strip would fit exactly around my 65" LG.

I have a couple of questions:

The link you put in the video comments http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5M-ws2801...51218.html shows a product for $51US. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. However, immediately below are products that seem about 1/5 of the price and comparable, like http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Best-pric...14202.html

Is there something that I am missing? Are they in fact functionally different in some way?

KenV99 · 2014-01-16, 13:47

(2014-01-16, 07:31)nickr Wrote: @KenV99 - I have watched your video and I must say, very cool! The 5m strip would fit exactly around my 65" LG.

I have a couple of questions:

The link you put in the video comments http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5M-ws2801...51218.html shows a product for $51US. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me. However, immediately below are products that seem about 1/5 of the price and comparable, like http://www.aliexpress.com/item/Best-pric...14202.html

Is there something that I am missing? Are they in fact functionally different in some way?

Thank you

Yes. It's a little confusing... The actual LED's on most of these strips are all '5050' LED's. The differences is whether or not they are individually addressable and how. The low cost strip you linked to is just 5050's, so they would all light the same color, but you can choose the color. The vast majority and easiest to set up are the WS2801's which use the 5050's, but also have a controller chip for each LED separately on the strip and use PWM signals. There is an easy to use library on from Adafruit that can be loaded onto an Arduino board to drive the strip. There are newer strips that use different signals and the most recent actually have the controller integrated into the actual LED. I know that other's have gotten these working using a couple of different libraries on Arduino or Arduino-like boards but I haven't tried.

So to make a long story short - you are paying more to have the LED's be individually addressable.

TRaSH · 2014-01-16, 18:34

did you need todo any soldering ?
how did you make sure the led strip stays fit in the corners arround your TV ?

KenV99 · 2014-01-16, 19:03

(2014-01-16, 18:34)TRaSH Wrote: did you need todo any soldering ?
how did you make sure the led strip stays fit in the corners arround your TV ?

I got a board with headers on it and some jumper wires and then used a connection block, so no soldering.
Because I wanted a non-permanent placement of the strips, I used eight magnetic hooks to secure the strips to the back of the TV.

TRaSH · 2014-01-16, 19:38

are you able to make a screenshot of that ?
because my soldering sucks,
and most guides i've read you needed to do some soldering

KenV99 · 2014-01-16, 20:12

(2014-01-16, 19:38)TRaSH Wrote: are you able to make a screenshot of that ?
because my soldering sucks,
and most guides i've read you needed to do some soldering

Connection Block

Power connector

Arduino Leonardo

Jumper wires

nickr · 2014-01-16, 21:51

Thank you first the extra information. You have given me the confidence to press 'buy' on those leds.

fastfoo714 · 2014-01-17, 01:41

I would have enjoyed your daylight picture a bit more had it not been of a still during the thrashing of my beloved Bengals playoff dreams. Sad

KenV99 · 2014-01-17, 15:53

(2014-01-16, 21:51)nickr Wrote: Thank you first the extra information. You have given me the confidence to press 'buy' on those leds.

Let me know if you have any issues setting it up.

You'll also need this: Power supply
It's recommended that you feed power at multiple places, but I found feeding at just the start and end works fine.
For that, you'll need: Power splitter

(2014-01-17, 01:41)fastfoo714 Wrote: I would have enjoyed your daylight picture a bit more had it not been of a still during the thrashing of my beloved Bengals playoff dreams.

Sorry about that. Being from CT, you can only guess what team I follow. Please, don't hate on me Smile

puttepep · 2014-01-23, 00:35

Thank you for the information KenV99!
I have ordered pieces and is planning on building something similar to what you have done. Would you mind posting a picture how you hooked up the LED with magnets and how you handled the corners without cutting the LED in different parts? I was planning on buying heat resistant 3M tape but magnets would probably be better.

Thanks in advance!