LED light effects without using nay arduino boards and writing programs? For a lot of people it is unimaginable. But there are ways how to do that.
1) 4 pin RGB LED light strip with remote control and USB
There are actually 2 ways I know of, one more known – when you use 4-pinned RGB (red-green-blue – able to create any color of your choice) lights with a remote control and USB charging (from a powerbank for example)
It is very easy to use and assemble (there’s usually no need of soldering) and a lot of cosplayers use that instead of Arduino programming.
The light effects depend on the controler you use, but most of the remotes can:
- shine in cca 15 preset colors
- flash in one color in 2 speeds (flash, strobe)
- fade from color to color in 2 different setups (fade, smooth)
- adjust brightness of the lights
You can buy a set for example HERE.
2) 2 pin one color LED light strip with control board
This option is not really known to a lot of people, but I use it everytime I need a nice light effect in a single color. I’ve used it in my guitar for Johnny Silverhand (red color) and I’m using it in my Permafrost pickaxe for my Valkyrie Fortnite cosplay too (cold white color).
Supplies:
- 12V 2 pin LED lights strip non waterproof in the color you need (they are the cheapest LED light strips available)
- 9V battery conector (because 9V battery is actually enough to power the LED strip while being cheap and available)
- a simple 3 keys controller
- a simple 3 pin mini switch
- heatgun, soldering iron, soldering tin, wire stripper, (spare wires, heat-shrink tubing, soldering acid that helps connect tin to wires)
This is the scheme of how to connect the whole circuit:
The light effects you achieve with most of the 3 keys controllers:
- steady shine in one color
- flash in one color in 3 speeds (flash, strobe that you can speed up and down in cca 25 different speed adjustments)
- pulse effect into black/completely dimmed (in cca 8 speeds)
- pulse effect into half dimmed (in cca 8 speeds)
- adjust brightness of the lights ( in 8 different dimmer setups)
See the light effects in this video:
The same kind of effect was installed also in the guitar for my cosplay of Johnny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077:
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Yours
Germia
Published: 26.12.19 14:29, Pacific Standard Time
