MONK MAKES ILLUMINATA LED Bulb Instructions
- October 27, 2023
- MONK MAKES
Table of Contents
MONK MAKES ILLUMINATA LED Bulb
INTRODUCTION
The MonkMakes Illuminata is designed to make it super-easy to attach a high brightness bulb to a Raspberry Pi, Pico, Arduino, ESP32 or other microcontroller board.
- 3V to 6V operation. 5V preferred.
- Built-in MOSFET for PWM and on/off control
- 1W input power at 6V
- Pre-soldered pin headers (GND, Control and +V)
- Breadboard friendly
- Laser-cut diffuser (superglue required)
- Cool Aluminum PCB heatsink
- M2.5 mounting holes
Most microcontrollers and single board computers (SBCs) like the Raspberry Pi have digital outputs that can only supply current of a few milliamps. This means that you can only use them with a low power LED, but if you want to control a high power LED light bulb then you need to use the microcontroller or SBC’s output pin to switch the LED light bulb on and off (using a transistor). The illuminata includes a transistor to switch its three high brightness LEDs on and off. This is why the Illuminata has three pins. Two are for power and the third is the control pin that switches the lamp on and off.
In the following sections you will find instructions for using this board with:
- The Raspberry Pi 4 (Python)
- The Raspberry Pi Pico (MicroPython)
- Arduino (Arduino C)
ASSEMBLY
The Illuminata is supplied as a kit, comprising the Illuminata PCB itself and
a two-piece laser-cut diffuser, that is attached by glue (not supplied) to the
Illuminata.
If you want to use the mounting holes to attach the Illuminata to something,
then make sure you put the M2.5 machine screws through the holes before you
glue on the diffuser top in step 4.
WARNING: Super glue can very easily stick to your fingers. This is not an activity to be carried out by a child and adults should take great care when following the instructions below. Wearing disposable gloves is recommended.
Step 1. Carefully peel the backing film off both sides of both pieces of the diffuser plastic.
Step 2. Carefully draw out a thin line of glue around the bottom, right and top sides of the PCB as marked out in orange below.
Then press the backwards-C shaped diffuser piece onto the PCB taking care not to get any glue on your fingers. Leave it to set for a couple of minutes before carrying out the next step.
Step 3. Optional. If you are going to use the Illuminata’s mounting
holes, then now is the last chance to put screws (not supplied) through the
holes before you glue the diffuser top on.
Step 4. Run another line of glue along the diffuser as shown below, and
then press the top diffuser piece into place.
HOW IT WORKS
The MonkMakes Illuminata expects between 3V and 6V between the Ground pin
(marked GND) and the positive supply pin (marked 5V).
5V is ideal, as it will light quite brightly and 5V is available on most
boards (Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Pico etc.)
The Illuminata will not actually light until the center control pin is higher
than about 1.5V relative to its GND connection. So, this control pin will
normally be connected to a digital output on your microcontroller or Raspberry
Pi.
As well as turning the illuminata on and off, you can also control its
brightness by connecting the Control pin to a PWM (Pulse Width Modulation)
output pin.
A PWM output supplies a train of pulses to the control pin. The duration of
these pulses is varied to vary the apparent brightness of the Illumininata. So
a short pulse will make the illuminata appear dim, but if the pulse is long,
so that it is above the 1.5V threshold for most of the cycle, then the
Illuminata will appear bright.
DOWNLOADING THE
EXAMPLES
To download the ZIP archive containing example programs for all platforms, visit https://github.com/monkmakes/illuminata
Click on the Code button, select Download ZIP and then extract the downloaded
ZIP archive.
If you are familiar with git and would prefer to download the examples using
the command line, then you can do so with the command:
$ git clone https://github.com/monkmakes/illuminata.git
With the extracted archive, you will find folders called:
- arduino – Arduino, ESP32 and other boards that can be programmed with the Arduino IDE
- raspberry_pi – Raspberry Pi Python examples
- raspberry_pi_pico – MicroPython examples for the Raspberry Pi Pico
RASPBERRY PI
The MonkMakes Illuminata makes a great companion to the Raspberry projects when you need to light something up! The Raspberry Pi (even very old models) can supply more than enough current at 5V for the Illuminata, and the 3.3V GPIO pins are fine for controlling it.
Connecting
Connect your Raspberry Pi to the MonkMakes Illuminata using female to female
jumper wires as shown below. It’s much easier to work out which pin is which
if you use a GPIO template like the Raspberry Leaf
(https://monkmakes.com/leaf).
The connections are:
- GND to GND
- 5V on the Raspberry Pi to + on the Plant Monitor
- 18 on the Raspberry Pi to RX_IN on the Plant Monitor
If you have a Raspberry Pi 400, then you can still connect it to the Illuminata. You’ll just need to be careful that you get the right pins.
Be careful when attaching the jumper leads to the Illuminata. Do not pust them in too hard, or you may break the header pins off the circuit board.
The files you downloaded earlier as a ZIP archive include programs for various different platforms into a folder called illuminata, so open a terminal session and change to the right directory for the Raspberry Pi examples by entering the command:
$ cd ~/illuminata/raspberry_pi
Before you can run the example on the Raspberry Pi, you will need to install the GUIZero and GPIO zero modules with the commands:
$ pip3 install guizero
$ pip3 install gpiozero
You can now run the example program example 01_slider.py which uses a slider control to set the brightness of the Illuminata.
$ python3 01_slider.py
RASPBERRY PI PICO AND PICO W
The connections are as follows for a Pico or Pico W:
- GND to GND
- 5V on the Pico to 5V on the Illuminata
- 16 on the Pico to Control on the Illuminata
Be careful when attaching the jumper leads to the Illuminata. Do not pust them
in too hard, or you may break the header pins off the circuit board.
You can use female-to-femaile jumper wires to connect the Illuminata to a Pico
as shown below.
Or, you can put your Pico in breadboard and connect it with female-to-male jumper wires. Using Breadboard for Pico (https://www.monkmakes.com/pico_bb) will make it very much easier to identify which pin of the Pico is which.
or, you can just mount the Illuminata end-on on the breadboard and use male- to-male jumper wires to make the connection.
Open Thonny on your computer and from the files that you downloaded earlier, load the file 01_fader_shell.py from the raspberry_pi_pico folder.
Run the program and you will see a prompt in the Shell area to enter the bightness as a number between 0 (off) and 10 (full brightness).
ARDUINO
In this section, we will assume the use of an Arduino Uno, but, in fact pretty much any Arduino or Arduino IDE compatible board (such as an ESP32 board) can be adapted to work with this example code.
The connections are as follows:
- GND on the Arduino to GND on the Illuminata
- 5V on the Arduino to 5V on the Illuminata
- Pin 3 on the Arduino to (or any PWM capable pin) to Control on the Illuminata
Be careful when attaching the jumper leads to the Illuminata. Do not pust them in too hard, or you may break the header pins off the circuit board.
In the examples that you downloaded earlier, you will find a folder called arduino. and within that a folder called 01_fader_serial.
Open the file 01_fader_serial.ino in the Arduino IDE.
Upload the program onto your Arduino and then open the Serial Monitor. Set the baud rate to 9600 and make sure that it is set to No line ending.
Enter different value of brightness and you should see the brightness of the Illuminata change.
TROUBLESHOOTING
Problem: I’ve connected power to the Illuminata’s GND and 5V pins, but it
is not lit.?
Solution: That’s correct, the Illuminata won’t illuminate until the
Control pin is connected to more than 1.5V (logic high). Try connecting the
Control pin to the positive supply of the illuminata and it should light.
Problem: The illuminata is connected to my microcontroller, but is not
lighting, even though I am setting the Control pin to logic high using a GPIO
pin.
Solution: Make sure that the pin in your code is the same as the pin you
have physically connected. Also, jumper wires can become faulty. Try
substituting the wires.
Problem: The illuminata is a little bit flickery, when used with my
Raspberry Pi.
Solution: That’s to be expected. The Raspberry Pi’s PWM does not maintain
consistent pulses.
Problem: I’ve stuck my fingers together with super glue.
Solution: We told you to be careful! Go and get some medical help. They
have solvents that will release your fingers without pulling any layers of
skin off.
SUPPORT
You can find the Product’s information page here:
https://monkmakes.com/illuminata including a datasheet for the product.
If you need further support, please email
[email protected].
BOOKS
The designer of this product (Simon Monk) also writes books about electronics. You may find some of these interesting.
MONKMAKES
As well as the illuminata, MonkMakes makes all sorts of kits and gadgets to help with your electronics projects. Find out more, as well as where to buy here: https://monkmakes.com you can also follow MonkMakes on Twitter @monkmakes.
References
- GitHub - monkmakes/illuminata: Example programs for the MonkMakes Illuminata
- GitHub - monkmakes/illuminata: Example programs for the MonkMakes Illuminata
- micro:bit - electronic kits | MonkMakes
- micro:bit - electronic kits | MonkMakes
- micro:bit - electronic kits | MonkMakes
- micro:bit - electronic kits | MonkMakes