3D-Printed Hexagons, an Arduino Nano, and LEDs Aplenty Make for a Great Halloween FastLED Helmet
Based on the FastLED library's example sketch, this configurable helmet started life out as a paper-covered beach ball.
Pseudonymous maker "HGRDOG14," hereafter simply "Dog," has used the Arduino FastLED animation library for a somewhat unusual purpose: turning a beach ball and WS2812b RGB LED strips into a wearable light-up helmet for Halloween.
"[This is a] 24 inch beach ball covered with paper mache to make [a] globe," Dog explains of the project. "Standard WS2812b [LED] strips with 30cm [around 11.8"] spacing arranged on rows around the globe. Rows connected by soldered wires in the back making one long string of 378 LEDs."
Having 378 LED arranged in a sphere is one thing, but making them do something interesting is another. Here, Dog turned to the tried-and-tested FastLED library running on an Arduino Nano — modifying the supplied sample sketch to suit the project. "[I] added a couple other pieces, and everything [is] chosen by a case-select structure," Dog explains. "[The animations are] chosen by [a] 16 button selector switch. Buttons 1-13 choose designs, 14 is unused, 15 dims the lights while 16 brightens the lights."
To power the helmet, Dog used three USB power banks soldered directly to the strips — required over using a single battery in order to maintain full brightness when required. To finish the build, hexagonal diffusers printed in natural PLA are fitted over the LEDs using hot-glue.
"[There's] no heat really," Dog says on the topic of comfort. "On the inside I have styrofoam spacers spaced around which give me about 2 inches from the sides of the globe. So I actually have a fair amount of airflow. To be honest I have not worn it for an extended period of time. That said, I haven’t felt any hot spots."
More details on the project are available in Dog's Reddit thread.