A Blue Star

Website theme update

2019-03-16T00:01:00-07:00

What is Jekyll

Jekyll is a blog-aware, static sites generator that was created to simplify the process of creating static website. The reason that I use Jekyll is that it removes the need for a server, a database, or security updates. Just push markdown content to a git repo on Github and github pages using Jekyll. After a few minutes my updated website appears at blog.abluestar.com. Since the pages are static, there is little chance of someone exploiting a flaw in the web server, or in a script to deface my website. I been using Jekyll and Github pages to build my website since 2016.

New Jekyll theme

I needed to relearn Jekyll for an upcoming work project and decided to revamp the theme on my personal website as a learning experience. I just finished the update and this is the first post with the new theme. Clean, simple, with SEO and social sharing baked in. Tell me what you think.

History of funvill.com and abluestar.com

When I started web development back in 2001, one the first things I did was create a blog to share my experience online with others. Started learning with pain html, this was before javascript became a common thing, and CSS was still new. In 2003 I moved on to Movable type and was able to generate my blog using template files. I created dozens of different templates and for awhile all I did was create website themes instead of writing content for my website. I learned a lot during the Movable type years. In 2005 the community had spoken and Wordpress was clear winner in website CMS. I created a few themes and dozens of plug-ins over the years. I have fond memories of my time with Wordpress, but security was abysmal. Between the security holes in Wordpress and all the 3rd part plug-ins I spent a log of time patching and updating instead of writing content. In 2010 I switched my domain name from funvill.com to abluestar.com and I created my own custom CMS. It was a great learning experience. I iterated on it constantly as I learned about new techniques and experimented. I had a lot of fun making my own CMS. When I was using Wordpress the attackers where robots/script kiddies were not attacking me personally just any wordpress site that they could. In 2016 the attacks were personal and directed specifically to me and my website. My custom CMS couldn’t keep up with the attacks and I eventually decided to migrate to Jekyll and static website. From 2016 onwards I been using Jekyll and Github pages. The world has changed a lot in 20 years.

Screenshots of my website over the years

Using the internet archive wayback machine you can see my websites change over the years. funvill.com, www.abluestar.com, blog.abluestar.com.

Screenshots of my website over the years

Podcasts 2019

2019-02-25T00:01:00-08:00

This is my updated podcast list for Feb 2019. My previous list from Nov 2016.

Reply All - A podcast about the internet’ that is actually an unfailingly original exploration of modern life and how to survive it. A good episode to start with is: #102 Long Distance
10 Things That Scare Me - A tiny podcast about our biggest fears. Everyone has fears, you are not alone in your fears. A good episode to start with is: Jad Abumrad
Embedded.fm - Embedded.fm is a podcast dedicated to the many aspects of engineering. They talk about the how, why, and what of engineering, usually devices. A good episode to start with is: 275: Don’t do what the computer tells you
Hello Internet - CGP Grey and Dr. Brady Haran talk about random things. A good episode to start with is: H.I. #109: Twitter War Room
EscapePod - Short stories from some of today’s best science fiction stories. A good episode to start with is: Escape Pod 630: Midnight Blue, Escape Pod 652: And Then There Were (N-One), and Escape Pod 644: The Revolution, Brought to You by Nike
The Dollop - @thedollop, Patreon The Dollop is a bi-weekly* American History Podcast. Every week, Dave Anthony reads a story to his friend, Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. A good episode to start with is: 150 - James Sullivan and the 1904 Olympic Games.
Freakonomics - @freakonomics Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner. A good episode to start with is: How to Optimize Your Apology (Ep. 353).
RadioLab - @Radiolab Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. A good episode to start with is: kg.
This American Life - @thisamerlife There’s a theme to each episode of This American Life, and a variety of stories on that theme. Most of the stories are journalism, with an occasional comedy routine or essay. There’s lots more to the show, but it’s sort of hard to describe. A good episode to start with is: 129 Cars. .
99 Percent Invisible - @99piorg 99% Invisible is about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world. A good episode to start with is: Structural Integrity

Stopped listening to

Snap Judgment - @SnapJudgment Snap Judgment is a weekly storytelling, Each episode is made up of narrative pieces on a common theme.
The Moth - The Moth Podcast features re-airs of all new episodes of The Moth Radio Hour, plus additional stories from our vast archive recorded over the past two decades. Episodes are released every Tuesday. @TheMoth
How I Built This - @HowIBuiltThis How I Built This is a podcast about innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. Each episode is a narrative journey marked by triumphs, failures, serendipity and insight — told by the founders of some of the world’s best known companies and brands. If you’ve ever built something from nothing, something you really care about — or even just dream about it

Feb 2019 brain dump

2019-02-20T00:01:00-08:00

Yet another brain dump post. Previous: Nov 2018, (May 2018, Jan 2018, May 2017, April 2017, March 2017. (brain dump: snapshot of the internal state of a knowledge database for transfer or archiving purposes)

Electronics

LEAP: Little Electronic and Arduino Projects - A collection of electronics Projects many involving an Arduino in one way or another.
Powering Digital Addressable RGB LED Pixels - A tips and tricks guild for powering LED projects.
Choosing the Correct Wire Size for a DC Circuit - Choosing the right wire size for your DC electrical project is important, since a wire that is too small can overheat and possibly start a fire.
Create With Cartoon Network - Simple projects featuring your favorite Cartoon Network characters using a Circuit Playground Express, and Microsoft Make Code
Find Chips - Access price, inventory, unique market intelligence and advanced analytics for all your parts.

Projects

Guide to building a cnc machine - A good intro to making a CNC machine using a Etch A Sketch
CNC coaster plotter A “Polar” CNC plotter that can draw pictures on to coasters.
Holly shit buttons! - A russian roulette style game where some of the buttons are connected to a bomb. People have to press the buttons and hope they don’t explode.
Humans vs. zombies via the ESP8266 - The devices operate using the ESP8266, in AP+station mode. The proximity sensing works on a very simple method. Devices show their human or zombie status by appearing as a WiFi AP by that name, and proximity detection is achieved by showing the signal strength of the opposite AP on an LED bar on the device. Once zombies get close enough to human devices, the humans are infected and become zombies themselves.
Retro Time - A series of awesome retro projects. Nixie tube, marble mazes, laser cut sculptures, and Automata.
Blinkybadge 2017 - A ESP based blinky badge made by Bunnie Huang for Burning man.

Self improvement

Habit Tracker Guide - Why and How to Track Your Habits.

Travel

Skip Lagged - Shows flights where the layover city is actually where you want to go. Sometimes produces cheaper flights.
Visalist - Shows where you can travel with your passport with or without getting a local visa.
SkyScanner - Finds cheap flights with depart and return date ranges. Good for when you are just looking for a trip and you don’t know where you want to go.

Other

Ted the caver - A journal about discovering a cave and exploring it.
A where in the world is Carmen Sandiego themed bar. Each section is a different place in the world. Puzzles for where she is. Leader boards for the people with the best score. Waiters dress up in red jackets like Carmen Sandiego, men dress up like wheres waldo.

Art

Anderson Ranch Print (2015) - Snowmass / Processing + HYPE + Laser Cutter + Pen Plotter workshop. A series of geometric computer generated patters that are suitable for laser cutting and plotters.

Disco Disco - Disco disco was inspired by a glitterball aesthetic; its acrylic fins act as light pipes channelling light into giant pixels that ripple and flicker in response to the slightest sound.

James Clar - This is my new favorite artist. Some of my favorite works by him are Time Bandits, Binary Star, Lunar Eclipse, Two Times One Sun

7-Ball Robot Juggler

Adam Goldberg - An ongoing series of minimal illustrations titled FAÜNA. The pieces combine black and red shapes and linework to form stylized versions of animals and insects, such as the one-eyed spider above or polka-dotted fish below. Instagram

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A post shared by TRÜF (@trufcreative) on Sep 27, 2018 at 9:44am PDT

Hot Spot III by Mona Hatoum - Neon glowing glob

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A post shared by Mitzy Malu Mudde (@mitzymalu) on Feb 15, 2016 at 10:29am PST

Travel Tips

2019-01-29T00:01:00-08:00

Traveling

I took the longest vacation of my life and spent the last two months traveling in south east Asia. South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and China. It was an amazing trip filled with wonderful experiences and memories. It was good to get away from it all and recharge the mental batteries. I came back overflowing with project ideas and hope for the future.

As I do with all projects, trips, relationships, etc.. After the trip I do a post-mortem to reflect on what worked and what didn’t. The unexamined life is not worth living. - Plato

A project post-mortem is a process, usually performed at the conclusion of a project, to determine and analyze elements of the project that were successful or unsuccessful… Project post-mortems are intended to inform process improvements which mitigate future risks and to promote iterative best practices.

Google maps lets you create custom maps where you can put pins in location that you want to remember. These custom maps can be shared between people. This was great for when we needed to find out hotel.
Google maps lets you make offline and searchable maps. When google maps is not available (such as in China) OSMAND is a good alternative.
I wish I would have packed more disposable clothing. While in south east Asia getting clothing tailor made was very reasonably priced and I picked up a bunch of clothing. If I had packed more disposable clothing I could have toss my old clothing as I replaced it along the trip.
Offline music with Spotify and podcasts where great to get thought long bus rides.
Everywhere used TripAdvisor. We where offered discounts on our services if we gave favorable reviews TripAdvisor. This made the reviews for most places on TripAdvisor useless. Its best to talk to the hotel staff and other guests to get good suggestions.
Google keep was good for keeping simple notes while on the trip. I brought a pen and paper note book with me but I didn’t touch it once.
We used Blurb (referral link) to make a photo book after the trip. These are some types of photos that I wish we would have taken more of during the trip, it would have made it easier to fill in the book.
- Photos of plane, bus, boat tickets or better yet photos in front of the vehicle if the destination was visible on the vehicle.
- City welcome signs that show where we were. Establishing photos for the different sections of the photo book.
- Portrait photos with our backs against walls. When he had these photos they where good to aline a page with book ends using our backs.
A diary of the trip helps keep the memories of the trip in order. Every two or three days we would sit down and go thought all the things that we have done and seen since the last diary day.
Water. Never leave the hotel without water. If you run out of water your new goal is to get more water. Drink more water.
Hotels can be noise, earplugs were a very important.
Most places have the raver version of rehydration salts, very few places had the sugar and glucose free versions. Sports drinks are not a substitute. We brought our own but ran out half way thought the trip and ended up having to go with the sugary version of EmergenC
Water proof cell phone case would have been useful, or at lest one of the water proof bags for my cell phone.
Don’t wear new shoes on a trip. I got a pair of trail runners just before I left for the trip. I wore them for a few days before and they seemed to fit fine. After a two weeks of walking in them they bruised, cut up and damaged my feet. The rest of the trip after I tossed the shoes and switched to flip flops, I had to baby my feet to ensure that they didn’t get any more damaged.
Don’t expect any place to accept visa in Asia with the exception of your hotel.
Bring a tiny flashlight or headlamp. It came in handy several times.

Trip to Shenzhen 2018

2019-01-28T00:01:00-08:00

I got to spend two days in Shenzhen at the tail end of a vacation. I love hitting up the markets in Huaqiang Road. Makers paradise. Below is a list of the things that I picked up.

LED Strip 12V SMD2835 Neon Light Round Line - I have purchased a lot of “Neon Light roap” in the past with mixed results. It was good to actually touch an feel it before buying it.
400 illuminuted rocker switch - Wantted to create a version of Simone Giertz, The Everyday calendar. But when I got home I found that the 12v LED switches are actually 110v neon switches. Ugh.
NESPI Case - A retro PI case with a set of controllers.

TOMO S4 4 x 18650 Li-ion Battery DIY Smart Power Bank Charger - Neat power bank and charger for 18650 Li-ion Battery.
LED “firework” lightbulb - A neat infinity mirror light bulb. BigClive has a good breakdown of how it works.

MC2 video purse - LED video wall on a purse that is very hackable.

Copper led “fairy light” - Cheap LED fairy wire. I use it to add a bit of light to projects.
RUIDENG UM24/UM24C USB 2.0 Color LCD Display Tester Voltage - Lots of features used to determin how much current a USB charger is using. Logs to CSV. Very userful for my LEDs projects.

LED rings (8x 16x 24x 35x 45x) - More LEDS
LED grid panel 16x16 - More LEDS
Mini LED Controller DC 5-24V SP002E WS2812B WS2811 WS2812 SK6812 RGB Dimmer - A neat little LED tester that I used to test LED rings and panels. These are cheap (>$1) and you can power them with a power bank.
Cheap drone - Cost less then 10 CAD and works.

Nov 2018 brain dump

2018-11-26T00:01:00-08:00

Yet another brain dump post (May 2018, Jan 2018, May 2017, April 2017, March 2017 ). (brain dump: snapshot of the internal state of a knowledge database for transfer or archiving purposes)

Books

The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win - This book has been recomended to me a few times my other teamleaders that found it useful.
Plum Island by Nelson DeMille - A hard boiled detective novel that followed a NYPD detective John Corey in 1997 as he a murder. Great book and started the John Corey series of books. I just started the The Lion’s Game, book 2 of 7 in this series.
Sabrina by Nick Drnaso - The first ever graphic novel nominated for the man booker prize. This is a great review of the book from Just Write](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yuyu1y1m1s4)

Art

Wobble Garden- Wobble Garden is a hand-crafted arrangement of sensing springs combined with reactive lighting. Players wobble springs to interact with the installation and play games. It creates a unique visual and tactile experience and will be scaleable to a several meter large installation. Reddit post, Youtube. This is the same guy that maked the TWANG project.
Crystal Campfire (2017) by Toby Schachman and Monique DeSalvo - Acrylic crystal with glowing LEDS in them. They are arranged in a campfire that is very relexing. This post goes thought the contruction process of making the crystals
Milk Jug Skulls - A instructables on how to mold a plastic milkjug into a human looking skull.
The Spice Must Flow Sand Table - This project is simlare to my CNC Zen garden that I made for Vancouver Maker Faire 2016, and the pro version Sisyphus. Its been interesting watching these project progress and see how they build their machines.
A Practical Guide to Designing PCB Art - Making art with PCBs
SI Playing Cards from Cassette Punk - These SI playing cards do away with the outdated colonial — or, worse, feudal — elements of playing cards, using the modern SI (International System of Units) philosophy instead.
Mohit Bhoite - Creates wonderful exploded circuits. One, Two, Three, Hackaday

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A post shared by Mohit Bhoite (@mohitbhoite)

Movies

As Above, So Below - Horror movie. Found footage of a documentary crew’s experience exploring the Catacombs of Paris Trailer
Housebound (2014) - Horror/Comedy movie. A young woman is forced to return to her childhood home after being placed under house arrest, where she suspects that something evil may be lurking. Trailer
It Follows (2014) - Horror, Mystery movie. A young woman is followed by an unknown supernatural force after a sexual encounter. Trailer
Eighth Grade (2018) - Comming of age story from the prespective of a youtube generation. An introverted teenage girl tries to survive the last week of her disastrous eighth grade year before leaving to start high school. Trailer

Other

Print a map on a mug - Github
GoTenna - Off network mesh networking that connects to your phone with bluetooth for input. I have made something simlare with ESP32s but this commercial product does it even better.
Camino de Santiago - known in English as the Way of Saint James among other names, is a network of pilgrims’ ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle Saint James the Great in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition has it that the remains of the saint are buried. Many follow its routes as a form of spiritual path or retreat for their spiritual growth. It is also popular with hiking and cycling enthusiasts and organized tour groups.

Resources for Islamic Geometric Design

Drawing Geometry by Jon Allen - This book teaches how to construct all of the basic polygons (that are necessary in all geometric design), using a compass and a straight edge. It doesn’t however teach much about how to physically use a compass, which is unfortunate. There may be videos online about that, or I could show you in person, if you wanted to book a private lesson.
Islamic Geometric Patterns by Eric Broug - This is an essential beginner book. It has simple to follow instructions and enough patterns to get you started. Eric’s second book has patterns as well, and is also a great addition.
Arts and Crafts of the Islamic Lands by Khaled Azzam - This book is essentially an introduction to the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts curriculum. It has patterns, shows various sub grids, and demonstrates many ways to utilize Islamic Geometric design.
Arabesques. Decorative Art in Morocco by Jean Marc Castera - This book explains a simplified way to design Moroccan style Islamic Geometric designs. It is an absolute gem of a book, and is certainly my favourite. However, it is a simplified beginners book (which has you using a grid method, which is not 100% accurate, but is still fantastic), which is great when you’re a beginner, but it’s not going to get you to the pro level.

May 2018 brain dump

2018-05-31T00:01:00-07:00

Yet another brain dump post (Jan 2018, May 2017, April 2017, March 2017 ). (brain dump: snapshot of the internal state of a knowledge database for transfer or archiving purposes)

Random interesting links

An intro to pen plotters - Pen plotters are friendly robots from a not so distant past. They’re the missing link between pencils and laser printers… HackerNews
MountainMath Software - Lots of vancouver based data visualizations.
List of different types of word play
Cipher on the William and Elizebeth Friedman tombstone - At the very bottom of the tombstone, a simple epitaph, “Knowledge Is Power”. But actually not as simple as it appears
Becareful what you copy - Using Zero-width characters are invisible, ‘non-printing’ characters… Hackernews
LifeFaker - Lifefaker.com is a fictitious website where you can purchase social media packages to create a veneered filter of your life to present to others. Packages include: “Look At My Holiday And Cry”, “My Unachievable Body”, “I Just Happen To Live Here” and many more. Launch blob post
9,096 Stars in the Sky - If you ever looked up into the night sky and asked yourself how many stars you could see, Maybe you said there must be millions of stars out there. A romantic idea but no. There is exactly 9,096 stars in the sky that are visible without magnification…
False Knees - A comic about birds. Quite good.
Dont Hit Save - A comic about programers trying to get out of work.

Robots

Bubble Blast - Kid friendly, bloon fighting, robot death match. Source
Donkey Car - An opensource DIY self driving platform for small scale cars. RC CAR + Raspberry Pi + Python (tornado, keras, tensorflow, opencv, ….)

ESP8266 and ESP32

ESPEasy - The ESP Easy firmware can be used to turn the ESP module into an easy multifunction sensor device for Home Automation solutions like Domoticz. Configuration of the ESP Easy is entirely web based, so once you’ve got the firmware loaded, you don’t need any other tool besides a common web browser.
Favorite open source esp project - A list of user submitted ESP projects.

Projects

ROMBUS PINBALL - A LATTEPANDA MINI PINBALL MACHINE - A mini pinball table that uses a tiny SBC and dule screens. source code
PewPew Lite FeatherWing - A feather wing with a 8x8 led matrix and a few buttons. Great for a simple badge.
CRAWLING A DUNGEON, 64 PIXELS AT A TIME - A simple dungen crawler on a 8x8 led grid.
TWANG - A Arduino-based, 1D, LED loving, dungeon crawler. inspired by Line Wobbler by Robin B. Video
Wooden lego planter - A neat project where they made a lego planter box out of CNC cut wood.
ECLIPSE LAMP - An interesting take a on a rotating lamp with LEDS and wood veneer
RPi Photoframe connected to google photos

Vancouver, Canada

Heritage Horns - Heritage Horns sound the first four notes of our national anthem everyday at noon

Art

Matthew Shlian - A paper artist that creates geomertry that extends out of the page. “The Process Series, a collection rooted in basic geometry and inspired by electronic music. His second series with Ghostly, The Tessellation Series, evokes the joy of improvisation, and hints at a wellspring of inspiring works to come.”

Wood frames - Stained glass windows project

2018-05-13T00:01:00-07:00

This post is part of a series on the stained glass windows project.

I been told that in the past that some of my projects have not been finished up well. After the technically interesting parts of the project are done I move on to the next project without adding that final layer of paint, or creating a box, giving it a name, etc. This project I wanted to spend the extra time to add a frame and other finishing touches to complete this project properly.

I was looking for a simple frame that would protect the acrylic and the electronics while fading into the background not taking too much attention from the work itself. I decided to use 3/4 inch thick baltic birch plywood. It a lightly colored wood, easy to work with and the plywood layers would look good next to the leds.

I design the frames in Fusion 360. It made it easier to get the measurements right and I could try a few virtual iterations without having to wasting materials on failed ideas. Fusion 360 has a nice feature that allows you to share a public interactive view of your design. People can add notes, markup and provide feedback from the interactive few. I don’t have a lot of practice with working with wood so this was very helpful when asking for feedback from my more experience woodworking friends.

I added a grove, one centimeter from the top of the frame. This allowed me to insert the acrylic panel into the wood securing it into place. I was worried about using any fasteners as they would shine thought when the LEDs are illuminated.

I decided to make the frame 80 millimeters high to allow for space for the cell divider, the LED panel, and LEDs and the electronics. I probably could have made this as small as 60 millimeters without too much issue. But after making the first frame I decided to keep them all the same height.

I started with a 4’x8’ 3/4” sheet of baltic birch plywood and cut a 80 mm strip using the table saw. 80 mm being the height of the frame.

To cut the groove for the acrylic plate to be seated in, I lower the table saw blade so that only 10 mm is extended from the deck of the table saw. This is the 10mm depth of the grove for the acrylic plate. Then moved the table saw fence so that it is 10 mm from the blade of the saw. This will be the 10 mm spacing between the grove and the top of the frame.

The saw blade that I was using was only 4mm thick and my acrylic is 6mm. I expanded the grove by moving the table saw fence from 10mm from the blade to 14mm from the blade. You can see from the photo below the two distinct cuts. This happens because I accidently bumped the height of the saw between cuts.

Next I cut the sides of the frame from the 80 mm strip. The frames have two concave 60 degree angle cuts. 60 degree x 6 sides = 360 full circle. I changed the angle of the saw blade to 60 degree, using the magnetic electronic tilt gage to get the angle just right. The angle measurements on the table saw are rarely accurate.

I added a stop block on the cross-cut sled 192 mm from the blade. Cut the edge so that the concave part is on the same side as the grooves and repeated this step until I got 6 frame segments.

After some light sanding, I added wood glue to the edges of the frame. Inserted the acrylic panel into the groove near the top of the frames, then used a tension strap to clamp the frames together.

24 hours later after the glue dried. I resanded everything to remove the glue drips. Then added a polyurethane clear coat to the wood to finish it off.

Programing - Stained glass windows project

2018-04-14T00:01:00-07:00

This post is part of a series on the stained glass windows project.

In this project I am using a Wemos ESP8266 development board. This board supports micro python, C/C++ and the Arduino variant of C/C++ via ESP8266 core for Arduino. I decided to go with the ESP8266 core for Arduino because I was able to get it up and running quickly and I already had the tool chain set up for it.

I been using FastLED for the last few projects over the more common Adafruit_NeoPixel library. FastLED uses less memory, more compatibility with different hardware and leds, actively maintained and updated, build in gamma and color correction, faster math and memory functions like HSV2RGB, Good comunity, Good documtation

For each pattern, I create a legend image that shows the offset of each LED. This gives me a good reference making it easier to make patterns.

Then I created a series of sets for each different geometry within the pattern.

For example: Star #1 = 3,4,9,14,13,10,3. Star #4 = 27,28,31,38,37,32. Cube #5=15,16,20. Cube #8=24,25,33

Next I create a series of function for each type of pattern. The functions take a set of offsets, the transition speed, the color pallet as parameters. These parameters are randomized each time the function is called and should produce a different pattern each time the panel is started up. Theoretically there should be in the order of 65 million different patterns, but realistically there is only a few hundred visibly different patterns for each panel

All the panels share the same code base with a different series of sets. As I made more patterns all the panels should get more and more interesting.

All of the source code for the panels can be found on my github. StainGlassLaserPatterns

Hardware - Stained glass windows project

2018-04-13T00:01:00-07:00

This post is part of a series on the stained glass windows project.

Below is the hardware and parts that I am using this project.

6 mm semi-transparent white acrylic

6 mm is the most common and cheapest thickness of acrylic that is available. This acrylic is 60% transparent creating a good difusion pattern to scatter the LED light. I also have a bunch of it that I salvaged from a dumpster behind a sign shop.

Square 12mm WS2812B RGB LEDS (NeoPixels)

The WS2812 RGB LEDs are cheap on Aliexpress as most people are moving to the better APA106 version. I picked up a few thousand of these square versions a few years ago in a massive group buy and I am still making my way through the stockpile.

I selected the square version over the bullet version to keep the profile of the panels smaller.

Wemos D1 mini ESP8266 with Arduino firmware

For most of my projects I have moved on to using the Adafruit HUZZAH32 - ESP32 Feather Board as the CPU speed is much better then ESP8266, but I have a stockpile of these older chips and the requirements of this project are well within the capability of the ESP8266.

The hardware is a $3 Wemos d1 mini

I am using the ESP826 arduino core library, and FastLED.

5 volt 5 amp AC to DC power supply

Each LED at full brightness consumes 60 mA, normally running at 20 mA. Each panel has between 30-45 LEDs. With a total of 7 panels. I needed around 6 Amps power supply but Power supplies larger than 5 Amps is expensive. I programed the LEDs to be 20% darker than their max, to reduce the power requirement to be less than 5 Amp so I could use this cheaper power supply.