LED Prop construction

Our finalized Prop with the lights on!

This article documents the construction of a wireless LED prop that was used for a multi-media dance performance. I’ll be covering the LED installation process in this article and have another article covering the programming and control of the object from touchdesigner.

Pixel Streaming Tutorial

Part List

This build requires only a few components which makes it really easy to put together. Here is what we used to drive the LED lighting.

Wifi Board: Adafruit Huzzah32

3.7v Lithium Ion Battery

Addressable LEDs

JST Connectors

Here is the board and battery connected to the top plate

The Battery plugs directly into the board and gets automatically recharged when the micro-usb is plugged in.

We used a total of 80 LEDs in our prop. We split the LEDs into groups of 4 and attached jst connectors to each of these so that we could easily build the object and snap the connectors together as we went. Cutting and soldering all of these connections was the most time consuming part of the process.

All of the LEDs cut and soldered

Putting it Together

Our prop was built out of multiple modular pieces which made it easy to construct and wire simultaneously. The LEDs have a sticky backing which we used to attach to our 3d printed connection pieces which held together our entire object. As we put the object together we connected the JST connectors together in series to ensure that by the time the whole object was constructed our wiring was completed.

All of the pieces put out to assembled

In the process of putting it all together

Final Result

Here are some videos showing the assembled props with different lighting patterns going through it.

Some of the JST connectors are visible through the frosted acrylic and cutting them down shorter could have minimized this from happening.