Indigo Domotics

Might be the wrong forum...

I want to light bookshelves, 7 shelves wide, 5 high, 35 shelves total. I would like to control each shelf independently ie: checkerboard, every other row or column, etc.
Small would be great and was thinking of using a Hue outdoor lighting approach.

Suggestions appreciated.

It's not going to be cheap however you go. If you have room behind the bookshelves to hide wiring, you could use dual-outlet plugin modules (no dimming), each one would control one shelf. Then plug basically any inexpensive light into those.

[MODERATOR NOTE]: moved to a more appropriate forum.

Interesting project. How about using the Indigo WLED plug-in to control several strings of addressable LED lights?

There are solutions that can address each LED individually, so you could have LONG LED chains and set color depending on book shelf = first 20 green, next 20 blue etc..

I have one that is 200 led long (2 meters) as a thermometer and each LED is set individually


Karl

Karl, what brand of lighting strip do you use. This sounds ideal.

Jeff, reading through the WLED info. Also sounds like a fix but maybe over my head. If I understand it correctly this approach is a cool hack to existing light strips. was that over simplifying?

The WLED option, while relying on ESP 32 or ESP 8266 chips, is pretty straightforward and well supported and does not involve any programming. It is also incredibly inexpensive compared to some of the finished products, and the WLED plug-in works quite well with it.




I ran about 100 feet of it running on six different ESP controllers, and the whole thing probably came out to $200. Most importantly, it is very dependable and works great with the indigo plug-in.

I’ll try to find links I have of motion effects on these

mundmc,
looks cool. I'm a little lost though. Is there a primer site I can read/review that would get me up to speed? Not certain where to begin in building a shopping list.

jroach wrote:

mundmc,
looks cool. I'm a little lost though. Is there a primer site I can read/review that would get me up to speed? Not certain where to begin in building a shopping list.

Happy to help!
I just searched on YouTube, and it is comical how many DIY videos there are on the topic, almost to the point that it is overwhelming.
The Hook Up is a pretty well produced channel that does a series of videos on it.

https://youtu.be/_UiqrnRiqpk

Off the top of my head, I’ll try to explain (all links are to products i used from my Amazon order history)

1) Buy a few NodeMCU esp8266 controllers. They are basically inexpensive, arduino-like controllers with built in wi-Fi. You can buy three of them for something like $16 on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081CSJV2V/re ... UTF8&psc=1

2) Buy a 5 meter strip of WS2812B addressable leds for $20 to experiment:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B072N7VGK6/re ... UTF8&psc=1

3) Buy a 5V power supply; i used an 8 amp supply But I am pretty sure you could get by with a 6 amp supply:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078RZBL8X/re ... UTF8&psc=1

Note: If you are using many, many feet of LEDs, you could buy one more powerful power supply (i used a 60A one for a bunch of Christmas lighting for $27) that can easily power multiple strips, but put that on hold until you are comfortable with it

4) The video has a link, but you basically go to the wled github page and download a file that can be flashed on to the esp8266:
https://github.com/Aircoookie/WLED

5) Download a firmware flasher (it’s in the instructions on the above link)

6) plug the ESP8266 into a USB port on your Mac or PC (I think I had better luck with a PC)

7) run the executable file, a program that “flashes firmware,“ that allows you to select the file you downloaded that you want to “flash“ onto the ESP 8266

While powering the ESP 8266 from the USB cord connecting it to your computer, it should immediately show up as a wifi access point that you can connect to from a computer or an iPhone or android or whatever

9) you will be connected to a webpage that is the interface for the ESP 80 to 66 WLED software, where you can enter your SS ID and Wi-Fi password

10) Reboot VESP 8266 and it will now connect to your wireless network, and you can enter the IP of the device into a web browser so that you can control it.

11) addressable LEDs have three connections: one positive 5 V connection, one -5V connection/ground, and one data pin

12) you can connect the positive wire from the power supply to the + on the light strip AND to the “VIN” on the ESP 8266. Do similarly with the negative wire. If you are lazy like me, you can use one of these so you don’t have to strip and solder:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01J1WZENK/re ... UTF8&psc=1

Note: it says 12V in the description, but it works for 5 V, or 3 V, or 24 V, or audio, or whatever. It’s all electrons.

13) Connect a wire from a pin on the ESP 8w66 (I am pretty certain the default pin is D4), to the digital pin on the light strip

You can now connect to the ESP 8266 from your local network, and from the indigo plug-in, and you can tell the ESP 8266 how many LEDs are in the strip that you want to control, and what you want them to do, and all sorts of fun stuff.

I entirely understand if this seems daunting; heck, I have done this a bunch of times and I am daunted from writing this, but it is doable, inexpensive, and once you can do it you will be emboldened to do lots of other cool stuff. It involves no programming.

Watch the video, because that guy is much better at explaining things in May, and it has pictures, and diagrams, and other illustrative stuff.

I hope this helps!

Wow! Thanks, very thorough. Appreciate your time documenting the steps.

It’s rare I get to give back here, I’m generally a taker

mundmc wrote:

It’s rare I get to give back here, I’m generally a taker

Puh....leeze.

Ha, thanks Dave. I only offer kludges so i don’t have to buckle-down and learn to write plugins!

@mundmc

It's been over a year and I've completed the 13 steps. Your outline was extremely helpful! BTW, It didn't take a year but it happened in spurts:)

I'm now ready to connect to Indigo. I've downloaded @kw123 plugin for Arduino. BTW, I'm starting with a simple LED as a start before ripping into the cabinets for the LED strip.
My pinout in the Arduino sketch is " pinMode(0,OUTPUT);" and have verified that the sketch works (blinks a yellow LED to look like a candle. I believe pin "0" to be D4 and have "enabled" D4 as OUTPUT in the dropdown in the device settings. I have also confirmed the IP address.

I just want to turn the LED off/on. Not certain how to configure that with the plugin.

Thanks (again).

Do I need to run some sort of Python code/script on my server that running Indigo?