Hacking a 10" Ring Light with the Raspberry Pi Pico
Timonsku has made a hardware upgrade to an RGB (and white) LED strip using the new Raspberry Pi Pico and a custom PCB.
Adding to his long list of hardware projects, developer timonsku has upgraded the commonly used 10" RGB (and white) ring lights. He replaced the internal hardware with the newly launched Raspberry Pi Pico, which fits perfectly into the button case provided.
Surprisingly, the LED ring light was not an RGBW strip but an RGB pixel strip and a plain dual color white strip. "The bad news is that the USB cable is powered only, but I guess that was too much to expect," Timonsku notes. This CircuitPython-based implementation, along with modifications, will not take more than 15 minutes.
"I thought about what would be the easiest and most approachable way for people to replicate this," the developer adds. The issue is always the MCU, QFN, or even QFP is scary for many so, that's why I looked if the Raspberry Pi Pico would fit in there and oh boy did it fit well."
Apart from the Raspberry Pi Pico, he included a custom PCB for the buttons using SMD components that can be hand soldered. However, timonsku adds, "I'll probably also make a 'proper' replacement PCB for the more inclined hacker that requires less fiddling and cutting but will require soldering the fine pitched RP2040, etc. directly".
More details about the hacking process are available in the Twitter thread.