{"id":2720,"date":"2013-06-16T21:11:14","date_gmt":"2013-06-17T02:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/?p=2720"},"modified":"2015-02-19T10:23:40","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T15:23:40","slug":"rgb-garden-glowies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/2013\/06\/16\/rgb-garden-glowies\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy and Cheap DIY LED RGB Garden Glowies"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a few weeks, we’ll have a new patio. \u00a0Like any new project I get into, I have to introduce a flavour of something DIY and electronic into the mix. \u00a0Like most guys, I’m planning for sound. \u00a0However, I’m also adding custom LED lighting to light up the armour stones, deck and pergola areas. \u00a0As part of the patio job, we are also planning on having a variety of plants and shrubs around the patio. \u00a0I figured it would be neat, for when we are entertaining, to have LED RGB glowies that I could place in each of the shrubs\/plants and have a RGB glowing garden as an entertainment piece.<\/p>\n

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I wanted something cheap and quick that I could pull out on short notice, turn on and drop into the plants to have a light show for the evening. \u00a0I also wanted something that I could whip together quickly. \u00a0Can’t really claim this as my idea as its been done many a time… Since I also wanted the components to be water resistant, and I wanted an easy way to power the units on\/off, the concept of a Reed switch and magnet came immediately to mind. \u00a0The idea being to have a magnet attached to a stick that is stuck into the ground. \u00a0Then, when it comes time to put the glowies out, I would just stick them to the magnets. \u00a0They would serve 2 purposes; 1) to hold the glowie in the middle of the shrub, and 2) trip the Reed switch to turn the glowie on. \u00a0With that plan, I went hunting. \u00a0 I managed to fleebay some RGB LEDs, reed switches, 2032 batteries (DX) and some coin cell holders. \u00a0Total price < $10. \u00a0Not bad. \u00a0I managed to scrounge the tiny plastic ball casings from some of my kids toys (shhh). \u00a0 They are perfect casings that just fit the battery holder and bits all inside and are < 1″ in diameter.. \u00a0The RGB LEDs also have an embedded microchip that automatically slowly cycles them between all level of RGB combination of colours (not just red>green>blue, but everything in between). \u00a0This saved lots of time, money and space as the alternative was to cobble together some ATTiny85\/25’s and have each PWM the LED’s.. \u00a0That would have pushed this project into the “not worth the effort territory”. \u00a0These suckers only take a few minutes each to put together. ..and you don’t have to be a soldering expert to do it.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’m happy with the result. \u00a0The glowies are just visible inside the plants, but no too bright that the are a big distraction. \u00a0This is an easy project that most anyone with basic soldering skills can do – and for < $10. \u00a0Check out the night effect in the front garden below.<\/p>\n

\"LEDGlowiesAllComponents\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Result: Pictures don’t do them justice, but the glowies have been placed inside each shrub\/bush and are noticeable from a distance. \u00a0 The effect is nice as each cycles through all the colours in the rainbow – all without a micro-controller.<\/p>\n

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In a few weeks, we’ll have a new patio. \u00a0Like any new project I get into, I have to introduce a flavour of something DIY and electronic into the mix. \u00a0Like most guys, I’m planning for sound. \u00a0However, I’m also adding custom LED lighting to light up the armour stones, deck and pergola areas. \u00a0As part of the patio job, we are also planning on having a variety of plants and shrubs around the patio. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,6,57],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arduino-electronics","category-dyihacks","category-electronics","has_no_thumb"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pK41j-HS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2720\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.plastibots.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}