I'll assume you have selected a story which is told through a number of scenes and you have drawn or cut and paste images from the internet for each scene.
I'll define a light object as a group of lights which form part or a whole subject eg the figure shows Santa as a subject which contains the white, red, blue LEDs and he's divided into 2 light objects (legs & boots; body, arms & head).
Design stage
1 Look at each scene drawing and circle the common light objects between scenes. The purpose is to re-use light objects as much as possible. So see if you could cut light objects into sections and use the top half for some scenes and whole character in other scenes (ie when required, turn on 2 light objects to get a whole object). This needs some creative thinking!
Examples:
i) This can be seen in the figure where Santa's lower feet & boots were cut off the body: Santa's body is used in the sleigh; his feet are turned on when he's standing.
ii) Merry Christmas (#13) and Christmas Eve (#14) signs are derived from the 3 individual words.
2 (a) Count the number of scenes and light objects. Use a word processor software to draw a table similar to the one shown below. Now write the scene no. and description into left columns. Write the no. and light objects along the top rows.
(b) For each scene, put an X into the table's cells for the light objects which should be ON. What you have done is create a control chart of what light objects will be turned on or off for each scene. This is a very important step to get right.
3 Decide how you will build each light object by using a combination of LED strip lighting (easiest & dearest) or individual LEDs which could be cut from a ready made light string (easier) or discrete LEDs wired together. Your budget will also influence what type of lights you will use. I use discrete LEDs because they fit any shape, cross over of shapes can be managed and soldering is easy for me.
4 You will have to consider what voltage the power supply will be. Note you could use a 24V power supply for discrete LED lights and a 24V/12V inverter for strip lights. This is a cheap solution that simplifies wiring of discrete LEDs. I used a 32V supply to minimise the number of strings of discrete LEDs. See following sections for more details.
5 You will have to consider what amount of current will flow in each colour group of LEDs (ie brightness) and the number of LEDs in each series group (see BASICS). It's very important for all LEDs to be complementary in brightness, ie don't make very bright LEDs - increase the resistor value to reduce brightness. I find a current of 7 - 10mA is good for low brightness LEDs and 3 - 5mA for high brightness LEDs . Diffused LEDs have more even colour than clear LEDs.
Also use oversize wattage value for resistors (approx 4 times actual wattage) - you don't want a hot resistor causing a fire!
6 It's best to group LEDs according to colour and a part of the object, eg Santa's white parts are white LED groups, etc. This will give evenness of colour. To give 3D affect, you can use slightly different colour LEDs to give this affect, eg dark and light green LEDs for tree or brightness of LEDs. Look at photos for ideas.
7 In latter years, you could add some fun things like a turbo mode (#12) where Santa's hat moves back, reindeer's nose flashes red, tail flashes white, etc. This stimulates more interest because people start looking for them.
NEXT >> Construction stage
No comments:
Post a Comment