My Baby’s Got LED Board Can Drive NeoPixels Using an ATX Power Supply
This custom ESP8266 board runs on a standard PC ATX power supply to drive a string of RGB LEDs.
The engineers at MCQN Ltd in the UK needed a way to drive their geometric light baubles individually, and decided batteries and power packs were out of the question. The setup included over 110 meters of WS2811b RGB LEDs, which were hand-cut, soldered, heat-shrunk, and affixed to custom frames. To solve the issue, MCQN designed distribution boxes wired for both power and data and tasked PC ATX power supplies to drive the displays.
To utilize those power supplies, the engineers developed a custom “My Baby’s Got LED” board, which is outfitted with an ESP8266 microcontroller to handle up to 30A of current at +5V, enough to control 500 RGB LEDs. MCQN explains, “The important number in all that is the current available at +5V. In this example, it’s 30A, which is common for a 500W power supply. If you divide that number by 0.06 (which is 60mA in A), you’ll find out how many LEDs it will power—in this case, 500.”
The board features an ATX socket on one side and a three-pin RGB header on the other, making it easy to connect WS2811b or DotStar/APA102-compatible LEDs. The ESP8266 comes equipped with a Tensilica L106 32-bit RISC processor and built-in Wi-Fi module, giving the ability to configure RGB LEDs in a myriad of colors and display patterns using a PC or smartphone.
MCQN is currently offering the My Baby’s Got LED on Tindie for $55 and shared a link to their GitHub page for those who would like to build their own.