As you are already aware from my previous column that I’m on my merry way to bring “Rainbow Blaze” into reality. Before going further, let’s talk about behind the scene – why I’m doing all of these? First of all, I have an aspiring propensity to play my jokes with electronics (Old habits die hard, buddy!). Secondly, it’s the maxim of Max (the Magnificent), “If you show me a flashing LED and I will show you a man drooling”. All I can say in this regard is I cultivated same kind of genes. Finally, the name— Rainbow Blaze itself indicates that I very much like rainbow. Now, I must have to admit that I forgot when was the last time I saw a rainbow in the open sky. With a tad excitement I started looking into the internet. That jolly moment sank with only static images. Yours truly digressed for a wishful demand of rain.
As the old saying goes— proof of pumpkin is in the nibbling. So, I commenced to guys and gals at Backpack to place an order of WS2812B LED strip, manufactured by Alitove (naked eyes haven’t skipped their maxim, A LIGHT OF LOVE) on Amazon. I chose a length of 5M strip, where 300 WS2812B siblings cascaded together equidistantly. You don’t have to be worry (but money?) if you don’t need a whole strip of 300 LEDs. You can split required number of LED(s) at location marked after each individual LED on the strip. Don’t forget to add an extra resistor at the data pin of newly segregated strip. Now, let’s take a sneak preview of my first-pass hardware of six number of strips with 16 LEDs on each strip. Ooh shiny! It’s the cool terminology, “peak hold” in audio engineering that gave me the dazzling flavor of rain.
Time and again when I start working with electronics, after hitting the power button I always stare at LEDs with a hope that it might glorify itself with pride and whisper ‘Hello’. However, course of true love never did run smooth. This time it wasn’t magic smoke (another synonym of learning), but Dark Lord– noise of planet Analog. However, I got the company of distant friends on EEWeb who scarified their valuable time to sharpen my axes to battle on the dark side. How beautiful the internet is?