ledtable

Many years ago I had the idea to build coffee table that had LEDs embedded in it. I was much less experienced in electronics but it actually worked well. However, there were a few reasons it fell out of use:

1. Sup-par construction of the table

2. All of the LED patterns I programmed were very flashy which meant it wasn't good for ambiance

3. I would forget to always turn it on and off.

So I decided to renovate the table with a focus on a few improvements: smaller form for the table (from coffee table to more of an end table), more relaxing LED patterns, automatic motion activated on/off.

Version 1:

Below is a picture of the Version 1 table. It is a simple wooden frame. The LEDs shine up through the bottom. The electronics are attached to the underside. I later added some paper cones around each LED to make a circle of light on the acrylic top.

The primary mode cycles through a set of patterns that I programmed for the LEDs. The second mode is sound activated which means you can plug in an audio input and the LEDs will respond to the music.

Main electronics:

1. Arduino

2. 42 LEDs of various colors

3. 3x TLC5940 chips used to control the LEDs

4. MSGEQ7 chip used to analyze an audio input

Version 2:

Version 2 is in progress.

I tried to re-use most of the electronics from version 1. However, I ran into some problems with the LED drivers. I was using 3x TLC5940 chips chained together. There are Arduino libraries available that make it much easier to set the LED values in the chips. From what I understand you are sending the LED values to the TLC5940 over a serial interface. When you have multiple TLC5940s chained together, they pass on the grayscale data to the next chip in the chain. I had problems with noise in the data signal which would cause the LEDs to flicker.

Links:

Git hub repository for project files and code