Youtube video from New Year 2023

This is the documentation and code of my LED firework build at the end of 2022. The idea came from this video. The code uses FastLED, started from code by Carl Rosendahl and was then heavily modified and extended by me. I am using PlatformIO with Visual Studio Code for development. For the initial implementation I used wokwi and switched to VS Code for the finetuning with the real hardware.

The LED strings came from AliExpress "50pcs 5V WS2811 Full Color LED IP68 Waterproof" (~13€ each). The flare (upwards segment) is one string with 50 LEDs. The streaks are 16 LED strings fastened with zip ties to 1m long Aluminium pipes with 6mm diameter (2,15€ each). There are 18 streaks, so there are 338 LEDs in total. The streaks are all wired in parallel so I have only 66 adressable LEDs: 0-49 for the flare and 50-65 for the flares.

The connections are mostly 3 Pin JST SM connectors. The code runs on a Wemos/Lolin D1 mini. Power is provided by an unbranded DC 5V 20A universal power supply (~20€).

The mast is made from two 2m wooden sticks and the central streaks "hub" from some leftover wooden block. The total cost was about 170€.

More info and pictures can be found in the wiki