Simple WLED Powered Night Light

thingiverse

If you collect this thing, be sure to like it as well. Thanks! Looking to dip your toe into the WLED light pool? Give this simple yet useful night light a try. I call it a night light, but it could also be an accent light or mood lamp or whatever your need is for a small, programmable, color changing lamp. This is based on a WeMos D1 mini, a great little microprocessor for use with WLED, an open source neo-pixel control system. You will need to do little soldering to hook up the simple circuit that powers the light. If you'd like to use a different esp8266 processor, you will need to adjust(remix) the processor plate to fit your part. Let's get to it! New: Honeycomb shade based on the work done at https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4807723/files New: Wavy Shade loosely based on the Yeah! lamp design. Build Instructions To switch or not to switch, that is the question. WLED has the ability to do things based on a switched input, but it works just fine without it. Using a switch adds to the build complexity, so if you're new at this, stick to the non-switched version. You can read about the WLED's use of a switch here: https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/wiki/Macros Instructions for installing the switch are noted by the "Switch:" tag. There are three pieces to print: shade, base unit (choose one depending if you're going to use a switch or not), and processor plate. The shade should be printed with a translucent filament. The base and plate can be any color you like. Use a raft and supports when printing the base. The other parts can be printed without them. Once you've printed the 3 parts, Wire up the neo-pixel ring, thread the 3 wires thru the provided hole and glue it down on the base with hotglue. I used a 330 Ohm resistor on the input. This is shown in image A and the circuit diagram. TIP: Use long leads on the wires. I used 6' leads which allowed me to solder them to the microprocessor without having to do it inside the base. Flip the base over and thread your 3 wires up thru the processor plate. Feed your wires into their respective microprocessor holes as shown in the circuit diagram. Switch: The ground contact needs 2 wires soldered to it. You can twist the ends together and feed them thru the gnd hole and then solder. A lead needs to be soldered to the D3 hole and one to the 3v hole. Make sure your wires exit from the top of the microprocessor. Switch: Wire up the switch at this point per the switch circuit diagram. Do not install the switch into the base yet. Once you're done with the soldering, tuck the microprocessor into the processor plate. It will look like it doesn't fit, but give it a push on the end and it should snap into place flush with the edge. This is shown in image B. Tip: Put a curl in your leads between the top of the base and the processor plate. Then when you sandwich it all together, the leads will expand out towards the walls of the base and not in a wuzzle. Note: If using the lamp base with switch, slip the edge of the processor plate under the box that holds the switch first and then press down. Now press the processor plate down into the base. I found that plugging in the power cable was enough to hold the plate in the base. You could at this point use some hot glue to further secure the plate to the base. This is shown in image C. Switch: Put some hot glue on the switch corners and install the switch into the base. Flip the base LED side up and press the cover on. It should just snug fit, otherwise, hot glue is your friend. Software Installation As noted on the WLED installation wiki (https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/wiki/Install-WLED-binary) there are a number of approaches you can take to programming the Wemos D1. I found most of the tools for doing that very linuxy flavored and as a windows user, a barrier. There is a windows programming tool, but it requires additional drivers to work. The route I went was to add the esp8266 core to my arduino IDE (since I was already using it for other projects.) and flash an OTA updater to the D1. Here is how you add the esp8266 core to your arduino IDE: https://randomnerdtutorials.com/how-to-install-esp8266-board-arduino-ide/ Once your IDE has been updated, download the OTA updater from here (https://github.com/Aircoookie/ESP8266MinimalHTTPUpdater) and following the instructions on that page, flash your D1. Connect to your D1 as indicated above and upload the final binary image -> latest stable release is WLED_0.11.1_ESP8266.bin, download it from here: https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/releases/tag/v0.11.1 If you've wired everything up as shown, then using the standard Wemos D1/esp8266 binary from the WLED project should work right out of the box. It will light up orange to indicate success. You're almost done! Follow steps 3-5 from this page (https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED/wiki) to access and connect your light to your wifi network. Then use the WLED app to control and program the light. That's it! BOM: (links are associate links, thanks for your support) 1 330 Ohm resistor 1 10k resistor (if using switch) 1 6x6x9 or 6x6x10 momentary switch: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VQF8P2Y?ie=UTF8&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=ani101mantoo-20&linkId=b1b90f6f0c3ca6b9c2285917f3ec2de9&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl 1 12 pixel Neo Pixel Ring: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0105VMUUQ?ie=UTF8&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=ani101mantoo-20&linkId=a2c79c235e481afce3ad353414421c55&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl 1 WeMos D1 mini micoprocessor: "https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081PX9YFV?ie=UTF8&psc=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=ani101mantoo-20&linkId=c7f741daa2aaed5a18e7e4a959f08958&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl" Software: https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED The Future New and interesting shades as I find them. WLED natively supports a switch, so V2 will include one. Remix this! There's a lot of room for creativity when it comes to the shade. Varying degrees of fill will create different light transmission (depending on how translucent your filament is). Lithopane shade? A larger 16 pixel ring can be used if the stump that centers the ring is widened. Post your makes and remakes!