FIRST, THERE WAS LED
In 2013, I was invited to Tom Igoe’s wedding.
Yes, the Tom Igoe, co-inventor of the Arduino
and bestselling author of Making Things Talk.
He married a good friend of mine from college,
and she invited me with the stipulation that I
didn’t ask Tom to sign my first edition of Physical
Computing. Apparently, she was sick of middle-
aged fanboys stopping him on the street for
autographs and advice.
In lieu of floral centerpieces, Tom made LED
lanterns for each table. If a guest touched one, it
not only changed colors but changed the color of
the lanterns in its proximity like a rainbow ripple.
When I told my daughter, she wanted me to make
a lantern for her. I never got around to it, until
recently when she threatened to buy one of those
internet-connected lamps for her and her friend.
Fortunately, my neighbor Pete had just given me
a LoRa module and I was looking for a project to
use it with. My daughter’s friend lives a mile and
a half away, so I planned to build two lamps and
connect them directly without having to use a
LoRa gateway. I call it the LOL-Ra Lamp.
You can find the source code and the SVG
files to laser cut the enclosure at github.com/
bserinese/LOL-Ra. I also posted some tips on
how to create your own emojis for the lamp, and
additional images and video, at serinese.com/
lol-ra-lamp.
1. HARDWARE ASSEMBLE!
By using the Adafruit Feather 32u4 LoRa module,
I got a microcontroller and LoRa radio in one. It
might have been cheaper to use an Arduino and
separate LoRa module, but I opted for simplicity.
The lamp uses five components, so assembly is
not too difficult using a breadboard.
I started by soldering an 18" wire to each pin of
the 8-way rotary switch, to the three legs of the
potentiometer, and to each end of the pushbutton.
I use solid-core Cat5 since it has eight color-coded
wires neatly packaged.That’s great for the rotary
switch (Figure
A
), since I just needed one more
18" piece for the ground center pin. To reduce
the noise on the potentiometer, I also soldered a
0.1µF capacitor across the ground and center pins;
otherwise the LEDs flickered like a bad disco.
The LED matrix comes with two 3-wire
Written and photographed by Bryan Serinese
TIME REQUIRED:
1–2 Hours
DIFFICULTY:
Moderate
COST:
$55 Per Lamp
MATERIALS
TO MAKE ONE LAMP:
» Adafruit Feather 32u4 microcontroller with
RFM9x LoRa radio, 915MHz aka RadioFruit,
Adafruit 3078, $35
» LED matrix, 16×16, WS2812B aka NeoPixel,
AliExpress, $10
» Mini rotary switch, 8-way selector single pole,
8 throw (SP8T), Adafruit 2925
» Potentiometer,10k
Ω
» Momentary pushbutton
» Capacitor, 0.1µF
» Switched power supply, 5V 3A AliExpress, $4
» Breadboard, 400 tie point AliExpress, $2
» Plywood, 3mm, 18"×9" piece I use Baltic birch.
» Hookup wire I use Cat5 cable.
TOOLS
» Soldering iron
» Wire cutters
» Laser cutter (optional) You could build a
different enclosure if you dont have access to a
laser cutter.
A
95
make.co
BRYAN SERINESE is a self-
diagnosed hack who hobbles
and cobbles bits and bytes to
make new and occasionally
useful thingies.He works in
his basement on LED projects
to brighten the long Vermont nights when he is
not putting the final touches on his forthcoming
zombie musical.serinese.com
M83_094-98_LoRaLamp_F1.indd 95M83_094-98_LoRaLamp_F1.indd 95 10/11/22 9:59 AM10/11/22 9:59 AM
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