My wife and I help out at a llama ranch on the weekends. This last weekend we were helping to clean out the lofts in the main barn, and I ran across a big white jug. I was told it was an old chicken waterer but the base had broken so just throw it out. Instead, I threw it in my car. I designed and 3d printed a base that holds two 18650 batteries, an arduino nano, a TP4056 charging panel, a switch, and a piece of pvc pipe with 67 WS2812s wrapped around it. It started life as a 7 gallon chicken waterer, but now it’s my giant jug of fire!
@Karl_Tinsley That is a super reuse/mod! Awesome job.
I think I hear Johnny Cash singing ‘Ring of Fire’ in the background. Great job!
What kind of run time do you get?
I haven’t tried running from full charge to shutdown yet, but I’ve gotten at least 5 hours on a charge. My staffs each have 300 leds and four 18650 batts and they run for 4 hours plus. This project has 67 leds and two 18650s, so could be much more than 5 hours. I’ll charge it up and give it a try.
Looks great!
From a full charge this afternoon, ran for eight straight hours until I turned it off for bed. I’ll turn it on again in the morning and see how much longer it will go.
I turned it on the next day and ran it another 5 hours. It still hadn’t died when I turned it off, but I think 13 hours is good enough for me! Currently in the process of printing plastic pieces to make it look like a big wrought iron lantern.
Here’s the start of the lantern pieces. Gonna be llama and alpaca themed!missing/deleted image from Google+
Coming along! Alpacas and llamas and camels, oh my! The photos don’t convey that this thing is over two feet tall.
missing/deleted image from Google+