Published February 29, 2016 © CC BY

Death Star Status Indicator

Show the status of your Death Star with this Death Star indicator.

IntermediateFull instructions provided2 hours983

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Particle Photon

Adafruit NeoPixel Ring 16 x 5050

Death Star Mood Lamp

M3 Machine Screw

NXP BSS138

Resistor 1K (1206)

Resistor 620R (1206)

Capacitor 1000uF 16V Through Hole

Capacitor 1uF (0805)

Terminal Block - 2 Pin

Molex - 3 Pin

Molex - 3 Pin - Receptacle

Molex crimp

Software apps and online services

IFTTT - Particle Channel

Tinamous.com

Particle.io

Story

As every Death Star operator knows all too well, knowing the status of your Death Star is critical, this simple indicator uses a Particle Photon to internet enable a Death Star Mood Lamp fitted with NeoPixels to give a colourful indication of the current status*

Death Star indicator in colour change (Rainbow) mode.

Hardware

Construction is relatively simple, pick up a Star Wars Death Star Mood Light from Staples or any place that sells them and start by taking it apart :-)

Death Star Mood Light

Out of the box the lap is not very interesting glowing white only.:

White Glowing Death Star

Original White Leds

Remove the PCB for the original LEDs and dispose of properly.

Print the inner support that holds the Photon PCB and two 16 LED NeoPixel rings. You may need to adjust the size of the NeoPixel supports as it's designed to be a tight fit, alternatively sandpaper and/or hot melt glue can be used to get a good fit.

3D printed internal mount

I used a NeoPixel driver board I'd made as part of a series of "Things on sticks" which is now named ThingySticks (the more observant of you may notice the PCB shown below has the old name on it).

The PCB design files can be downloaded from

http://thingysticks.com/Neopixels/ or https://github.com/ThingySticks/NeoPixels

The main thing this board does is provide level shifting from the 3v3 of the Photon to the 5V required for the NeoPixels, this is done via a FET. It should be noted that the resistor R3 on the 5V side of the FET needs to be low enough (e.g. 1k) otherwise the rise time of the signal is too slow for the NeoPixels. Ideally a proper level shifter should be used (this will be done on the next rev of the PCB).

Neopixel ThingyStick. Photon driver for the Neopixels

The power leads from the USB socket on the Death Star Mood Light need extending, this is just a case of soldering 2 new wires on:

Extending the USB connector power leads

The NeoPixels are connected in series as per normal NeoPixel wiring. The bottom NeoPixel ring is first with Data Out going to Data In on the top NeoPixel ring, Ground and +5V are connected in parallel between the two boards, helpfully the rings have 2 holes for each power allowing an in and out cable.

NeoPixel ring wiring

The various parts are then assembled onto the internal support. The NeoPixel rings could do with some hot melt glue to hold them in place but they are a fairly tight fit around the support so may not be needed (esp. if you use single core cable to link the two rings as this can be twisted to hold them tight together).

The power from the USB socket on the Death Star goes to the 5V External connector at the top of the NeoPixel ThingyStick and the NeoPixels are connected to the 3 pin molex connector on the stick.

A Small 3D printed washer is used to give a nice fit for a M3 screw in the base to the inner support.

Base washer mounting

Final construction of the NeoPixel drive.

Then it's just a case of putting the insert into the plastic shell and programming the Photon.

Red Alert!

Software

The firmware exposes 4 Particle.function() functions:

setAlert()
setClear()
rainbow()
setLedsOff()

Both setAlert and setClear support taking "Top" or "Bottom" as parameters to specify if the top of the bottom should be set to alert or clear. If neither is specified then both hemispheres are set.

Calling setAlert sets the colour to red and setClear sets the colour to green. The rainbow function produces a nice rainbow effect on the lamp and setLedsOff switches it off.

As these functions are exposed to the internet via the Particle API they can be called via any client application you wish, or 3rd party services such as IFTTT or Tinamous.

Calling the particle functions through Tinamous.com

Conclusion

With that we have a status indicator that can be controlled via the internet as you desire. I'm still waiting for IFTTT to support data collection from the various Death Star systems so you may need to find something else to indicate on until then, or just use it as a nice colourful lamp.

A healthy Death Star

* May also be used to indicate the status of other things, like your build, under/over temperature, if it's raining or sunny or anything you like really.

Schematics

Code

// This #include statement was automatically added by the Particle IDE.
#include "neopixel/neopixel.h"

#define PIXEL_TYPE WS2812B

Adafruit_NeoPixel circle = Adafruit_NeoPixel(32, D3, PIXEL_TYPE);

// Particle functions
int setAlert(String command);
int setClear(String command);
int rainbow(String command);
int setLedsOff(String command);

bool showRainbow = false;
bool alertTop = false;
bool alertBottom = false;
bool ledsOff = false;

void setup()
{
  circle.begin();
  circle.show();
  
  Particle.function("setAlert", setAlert);
  Particle.function("setClear", setClear);
  Particle.function("rainbow", rainbow);
  Particle.function("setLedsOff", setLedsOff);
  Particle.publish("Status", "Deathstart online. V1.1.0");
 }

void loop()
{
  //rainbow(10);
  if (!ledsOff) {
      if (alertTop) {
          setTop(255,0,0);
      } else {
          setTop(0,255,0);
      }
      
      if (alertBottom) {
          setBottom(255,0,0);
      } else {
          setBottom(0,255,0);
      }
      
      if (showRainbow) {
          rainbow(50);
      }
  } else {
      setTop(0,0,0);
      setBottom(0,0,0);
  }
  
  delay(1000);
}

void setTop(int r, int g, int b) {
    for(int i=16; i<circle.numPixels(); i++) {
      circle.setPixelColor(i,r,g,b);
    }
    circle.show();
}

void setBottom(int r, int g, int b) {
    for(int i=0; i<16; i++) {
      circle.setPixelColor(i, r,g,b);
    }
    circle.show();
}

void rainbow(uint8_t wait) {
  uint16_t i, j;

  for(j=0; j<256; j++) {
    for(i=0; i<circle.numPixels(); i++) {
      circle.setPixelColor(i, Wheel((i+j) & 255));
    }
    
    circle.show();
    delay(wait);
  }
}

// Input a value 0 to 255 to get a color value.
// The colours are a transition r - g - b - back to r.
uint32_t Wheel(byte WheelPos) {
  if(WheelPos < 85) {
   return circle.Color(WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3, 0);
  } else if(WheelPos < 170) {
   WheelPos -= 85;
   return circle.Color(255 - WheelPos * 3, 0, WheelPos * 3);
  } else {
   WheelPos -= 170;
   return circle.Color(0, WheelPos * 3, 255 - WheelPos * 3);
  }
}

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Particle functions
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
int setAlert(String command) {
    showRainbow = false;
    
    if (command == "Top") {
         alertTop = true;
         return 1;
    } else if (command == "Bottom") {
        alertBottom = true;
        return 2;
    } else {
        alertTop = true;
        alertBottom = true;
        return 3;
    }
    
    return 0;
}

int setClear(String command) {
    showRainbow = false;
    
    if (command == "Top") {
        alertTop = false;
        return 1;
    } else if (command == "Bottom") {
        alertBottom = false;
        return 2;
    } else {
        alertTop = false;
        alertBottom = false;
        return 3;
    }
    
    return 0;
}

int rainbow(String command) {
    showRainbow = true;
    return 1;
}

int setLedsOff(String command) {
    showRainbow = false;
    ledsOff = true;
    return 1;
}

neopixelInner = 31.8; // 31.6mm
neopixelOuter = 45;

difference() {
    union() {

        // NeoPixel mount
        cylinder(d=neopixelInner, h=14);

        translate([0,0,5]) {
            cylinder(d=neopixelOuter, h=4);
        }

        // Connection cylinder
        translate([0,0,14]) {
            cylinder(d=16, h=80);
        }

        // mount for the photon board
        translate([-6.5,3,14]) {
            cube ([13, 5,70]);
        }
    }
    union() {

        // hole for the photon mount
        translate([0,9,91-22]) {
            rotate([90,0,0]) {
                #cylinder(d=2.6, h=10, $fn=20);
            }
        }
        
        // Hole to hold the structure
        translate([0,0,85]) {
            #cylinder(d=2.6, h=10, $fn=20);
        }
    }
}

Credits

Stephen Harrison

18 projects • 51 followers

Founder of Tinamous.com, software developer, hardware tinkerer, dyslexic. @TinamousSteve

Thanks to Adafruit.

Death Star Status Indicator

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Hardware

Software

Custom parts and enclosures

Inner structure mount for NeoPixels and ThingyStick PCB

Base washer

Schematics

ThingyStick - NeoPixel

ThingyStick - NeoPixel driver schematic

ThingyStick - NeoPixel driver PCB

Schematic PDF

PCB All Layers - PDF

PCB All Layers - PDF

PCB Top Layer - PDF

PCB Bottom Layer - PDF

Code

Photon Code

Inner Structure OpenSCAD file

Washer OpenSCAD

Credits

Stephen Harrison

Comments

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Death Star Status Indicator

Death Star Status Indicator

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Story

Hardware

Software

Custom parts and enclosures

Inner structure mount for NeoPixels and ThingyStick PCB

Base washer

Schematics

ThingyStick - NeoPixel

ThingyStick - NeoPixel driver schematic

ThingyStick - NeoPixel driver PCB

Schematic PDF

PCB All Layers - PDF

PCB All Layers - PDF

PCB Top Layer - PDF

PCB Bottom Layer - PDF

Code

Photon Code

Inner Structure OpenSCAD file

Washer OpenSCAD

Credits

Stephen Harrison

Comments

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