Review
(^172) The Official Raspberry Pi Projects Book raspberrypi.org/magpi
Connect
RGB LED
shapes.
Sculpt your
lights
RasPiO
Maker
Says
RASPIO INSPIRING
he main selling point of
RasPiO InsPiRing is the
ability to daisy-chain a
variety of LED strips and shapes
together to create 2D and even
3D displays. Available kits are: a
strip of eight LEDs (£10/£13), a
circle or triangle of 24 LEDs (£20),
a bike turn signals kit (£48), and
a bumper bundle (£83). While the
original pyramid kit is no longer
available, you can still create it by
buying extra triangles.
Although the super-bright
APA102c LEDs can be controlled
by other devices – including
Arduino, ATtiny, and ESP8266
- each kit comes with a pHAT-
sized driver board for the Pi,
communicating via SPI. Assembly
takes around 20 minutes and
involves soldering on a 40-pin
header, two small female headers,
and a socket for a buffer chip. The
chip translates the Pi’s voltage
to 5 V logic to drive the LEDs.
The power supplied by the Pi
alone should be enough for most
projects, but there’s the option
of boosting it with an external 5 V
power supply if needed. Jumper
wires are supplied for connecting
the light strips and shapes to the
Pi, along with a couple of optional
10 kΩ resistors (not needed in most
cases). There’s also the option of
a header for analogue inputs, so
you could control your lights with
potentiometers, for instance.
Male and female four-pin
connectors are supplied for each
LED strip and shape, enabling you
to daisy-chain units together.
Three sets of input/output holes
are provided at each end, so you
can solder your connectors at
various angles: 180°, 90°, or 45°.
This offers more flexibility when
connecting units to create custom
light displays, although you can
always just wire directly to the
holes if you prefer.Indeed, that’s what you’ll
be doing if you want to build a
pyramid. After assembling the 3D
shape from three triangles, held
together using pieces of sticky
tape, you’ll need to solder bare
wires between the input/output
holes at each vertex, which is
fairly fiddly.
Once the hardware is assembled,
the software is installed on
the Pi with a single command
and includes a range of Python
examples which can easily be
adapted for your own purposes.Last word
This range of LED lighting
kits offers flexible daisy-
chain connectivity that
enables makers to ‘sculpt’
custom arrangements of
shapes. The end results are
impressive: the super-bright
LEDs creating some dazzling
displays. The bike turn signals
kit is a fun-to-make road
safety aid, and would make an
excellent gift.Create impressive illuminations with this dazzling range of light kits
T
RASPIO INSPIRING
rasp.io/inspiring
From £10/$13
MOTE
Instead of
daisy-chaining,
each super-
bright LED strip
(no shapes)
is connected
separately to a
pHAT or USB-
connected host.magpi.cc/2g9iyLsRelated
From £16/$21