Lumapad prototype (via Lumapad Kickstarter)
Lights! Camera! Action! Whenever you are capturing anything on camera, lighting is essential to get the right shots. They can create daylight in a dark studio but the right light can cost a pretty penny, suck up around 1000 W and become hazardous because of how hot they get.
The new lamp, called the Lumapad, created by Richard Haberkern is an open source solution to the issue of big, expensive lamps we are all used to. The project outlines how to hook up a 32 LED array to an Arduino Pro Mini 328, and an ATmega 328P, along with a head sink and a fan if needed. Making it even cooler is that Haberkern detailed how to add an Electric IMP slot to connect the camera to Wi-Fi. Since it’s easy to connect devices together, you can easily replace a light board with a few Lumapads and a laptop. The camera does include controls on the unit itself also.
All those peripherals, the guts of the “Internet of Things,” means that getting connected is easy. Using USB, your iOS or Android smartphone or Wi-Fi, you can control the brightness, program sequences or strobe effects and the fancy version allows you to change color temperature as well.
The only thing holding you back from your perfect lighting is brushing up on your coding skills. The Arduino is fully accessible and the Electric IMP is just as customizable using Squirrel, a C-like language.
To recreate the bright light of a 1000 W Tungsten bulb (8,000 lumens), this ultra-bright LED set up only needs 88 W and a fraction of the size, measuring just 6.75’’ wide and 4.5’’ tall. Lumapad is just one-tenth the size of a standard lamp and uses just under 10% of the power.
Haberkern created a “Kickstarter” project, which is currently about halfway to his goal of $28,000. With a $175 contribution, you can get the barebones version which gets you the dual-color, deluxe version fully built including Wi-Fi IMP. Other kits are offered within that range. Check out the campaign athttp://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1324892969/open-source-ultra-bright-led-light-pad-with-wifi-aLumapad Kickstarter.
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