Light-Up Cyberpunk Guitar Strap with Repurposed PCBs

After putting together a kit electric guitar earlier this year, I was immediately struck by its hacking possibilities. I also just so happened to have an assortment of spare PCBs available, some with WS2812B LEDs already assembled and ready for lighting duties.

Of course, the only responsible thing to do would be to attach these PCBs to a guitar strap, allowing them to light up with music in true cyberpunk style!

To drive the PCB LEDs in proportion to music (or other noise) output I chose Adafruit's Circuit Playground Express (CPE) board, which includes a built-in microphone and can be programmed in CircuitPython. Code can be found here, which first lights up the CPE's 10 onboard addressable LEDs, then signals attached LEDs to complete the VU meter sound representation.

PCBs are soldered together in order to share power/ground and pass along signals, then hot glued onto an off-the-shelf guitar strap. The CPE itself is housed in a custom 3D-printed holder, which also includes space for a lipstick-style USB battery to power everything.

While the PCBs give this strap a nice cyberpunk feel, the reality is that LED strips – rather than unused PCBs – are much easier to obtain. If you'd like to try this out yourself, in a format that in theory doesn't even require any soldering work, I've also put together an easier-to-build strip version of this concept in the JCo Audio video below.

Hope you enjoy the videos, and I'd be thrilled to know if you make one yourself!