SeBsZ Blog

Ikea Dioder with Wireless Xbee Modification

SeBsZ — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 15:24:49 GMT

Hello everyone! As you know I've been working on a wireless Xbee-based home automation system designed to dim conventional lighting through dimmers installed inside walls. This can be found on the Seblectric website at seblectric.com.

Some people have asked me whether I can make a mood-lighting solution for them using colored LEDs. RGB LEDs have always been a great interest of mine, as you can see from my previous blog posts. Instead of making everything myself, I decided to make a modification for the popular Ikea Dioder LED strips. These LED strips can be installed easily in any position and work well for mood lighting purposes. There was only one problem: you have to manually set the colors by pressing the button.

To make it work with the Seblectric Home Automation system, I used my universal Xbee IO Board. The Atmega88 on the IO Board drives the three R,G and B channels all by itself, as the original PIC microcontroller has been removed from the Dioder board. It is now able to receive wireless commands through the Xbee, and the colors will fade to the set color nicely.

I am now selling this system in two versions:

1. Just the IO Board, no Xbee, including preprogrammed Atmega88. All wire connections and modifications to the original Dioder (KZQ-1M) have to be done yourself. EUR29. Add to cart!
2. Four Ikea Dioder LED strips, including modifications, including xbee, programmed Atmega88 and enclosure. Includes shipping and Windows example software. EUR189. Add to cart!

For everyone else, I am releasing the schematic of the IO board, as well as the modifications to the Dioder board so you can do this yourself.

Schematic:

Please remember this is the schematic of my universal IO board. It is in no way specific to the Ikea Dioder hack.

Please refer to this image of the dioder board to learn about the modifications done:

Modifications to Ikea Dioder board:
1. Remove PIC Microcontroller (IC1)
2. Connect +5V and GND from the empty capacitor C2 to the IO Board pins labelled X1-1 and X1-2 on the schematic.
3. The three resistors R1, R3 and R5 on the dioder board correspond to the Red Green and Blue LED channels. Connect these to the IO board input pins 2, 6 and 7. This is because these are connected to the PWM output pins of the Atmega88. These pins are labelled X2-7, X2-2 and X2-3 on the schematic.
4. That's all!

Update on the RGB LED Board!

SeBsZ — Sun, 23 May 2010 12:53:18 GMT

I know it's been a while, but I finally managed to write a post about the LED board. It contains 25 RGB LEDs, driven by 5 dimming LED controllers. The brain is an ATMega8 which takes care of reading from the SD Card, as well as accepting USB data through the FT232. I wrote a program in C# which allows you to create some simple effects. The effects are then saved to the SD Card which the LED Board can then read. It starts playing when it senses an SD card has been inserted.

The program:

Some pictures of the PCB:

Video:

Exciting project

SeBsZ — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:22:54 GMT

Above is a 3d model of the PCB I'm currently getting professionally produced as a prototype. Once I have it soldered, I will put up pictures and videos of it working.

It is a tile of 24x24cm consisting of 25 RGB LEDs. It has a USB connection, an Atmel Microcontroller as well as an SD Card reader all on one board!

More will be disclosed later...

Long awaited update: now 49 RGB LEDs - a 7x7 matrix!

SeBsZ — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:09:59 GMT

Sorry for the long delays but finally here is an update to my project. There is a short teaser video below as well. First some construction pictures:

The LEDs are stuck to a piece of 70x70 cm plywood. I have etched 5 new PCBS myself. Each PCB can drive 10 RGB LEDs, so 5 PCBS is enough for 49 RGB LEDs.

A piece of 70x70cm canvas was placed in front of the LEDs to produce the wonderful diffusing effect.

The software is written by me and will become more advanced. Stay tuned, exciting updates coming soon!!

Any questions can be emailed to me, sebs89 at g m a i l d.o.t com

Quick update

SeBsZ — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:09:37 GMT

I would just like to clarify that the board you see below is just a PROTOTYPE and my final display will have LEDs on cloth, on which I'm currently working. I'm planning on posting another update in the coming days/week.

Questions can always be mailed to me

25 RGB LEDs!

SeBsZ — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:52:12 GMT

Well, it's time for another update! As I explained earlier, my plan is to eventually have RGB LEDs stuck to a large piece of cloth (maybe 2.5x2.5 meters), and being able to fold these pieces of cloth for easy transportation. Since this requires a bit more work, and getting the right cloth etc., I decided to first make a smaller 5x5 LED panel. I found a magnetic board hanging on my wall and decided it looked nice and square. After doing some measurements and drawing crosses, I placed my small LED circuit boards on the board. The result looked like this:

After many hours of soldering the circuit boards, stripping ribbon cables, attaching connectors, and of course a lot of tape, I got my board to look like this:

I have to agree, the tape does not make it look any prettier. Especially since the nice transparent cello tape ran out and I had to use that non-transparent type of tape half-way through. The back of the board has the LED driver boards attached, connecting nicely to the LEDs using IDC connectors:

Finally, a video of the 25 RGB LEDs working wonderfully:

RGB LED Display Update

SeBsZ — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:47:43 GMT

I just came back from my friend Noel who has helped me a lot to get the PCB making process work perfectly each time. I have completely redesigned the board, and etched a total of 5 of these boards. I am going to solder them and provide another update here. After that, I can run 25 RGB LEDs :), one step closer to my goal of 100!

Any questions can always be sent to me at sebs90_at_gmail_dot*com

LED Display Part 1

SeBsZ — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:16:13 GMT

This is my first post about my RGB LED display. It has been designed and built completely from scratch and allows for dimming of RGB LEDs.

Currently there are only 5 RGB LEDs, but this will expand to at least 100 RGB LEDs in the near future, as I get more circuit boards done. Some photos follow as well as a Youtube video:

NLP Master Steve Boyley visiting Malta

SeBsZ — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:22:47 GMT

On the 20th, 21st, 22nd November 2009, NLP master Steve Boyley will be visiting Malta. For more information about this event and how to register, please visit http://www.upyourbrain.com

SeBsZ

Toronto 2008

SeBsZ — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:53:05 GMT

On the 26th of June 2008 I went to Toronto, Canada with my father. When we got there we both felt pretty tired so after we went to a bar and had a drink we went to sleep in our hotel. The next day we made a reservation to have dinner at the CN Tower, which was the world's tallest free-standing structure until 2007. It stands 553 meters tall!

When we reached the restaurant after a 60 second elevator ride (fun fact: it takes 9 seconds to reach the ground if you were to jump from this height) we were greeted with an amazing view:

Here I am with a big smile :)

After the amazing and delicious food I took a walk on the glass floor. I was hesitant at first, but when I took the plunge (not literally) I was greeted by an amazing sight:

Once back on the ground, some people were shouting "Tickets to the game!" and so we decided to watch the baseball game between the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays.

On our last day we went to the Niagara Falls which was simply amazing!

We didn't have a lot of time though since we had to go back to Amsterdam.