Phyllotaxis: An Audio-Reactive LED Display
Inspired by the double-spiral patterns of sunflowers, I built a phyllotaxis LED sculpture. Using Processing, CadQuery, and 3D printing, I created a cellular matrix of 89 addressable LEDs. An STM32 with an I2S mic runs FFT to make it react to music. After a second version with PCBs and an ESP32, it now lives at the Recurse Center as an installation.
It came alive listening to Jon Hopkins’ Neon Pattern Drum.
- throwaway219450
Very cool. 5-fold symmetry on the PCB to use up the board allowance is particularly neat.
A trick that poor hobbyists learn early on is to make pads a little larger than necessary for SMT parts so you've got somewhere to wick solder onto. Neopixels (5050 LEDs) are reasonable to hand-solder since the pads extend up the sides of the package, but you can also do QFNs with a bit of practice by placing a big via to get to the central pad from underneath.
- doawoo
Insanely cool and very well built! Natural patterns are a great basis for visuals
- simlevesque
You could make millions selling these to audiophiles.
- lukeify
Cool! Remarkably similar to Voria Labs who produce a product called Lumanoi https://voria.com/
Perhaps an example of convergent evolution? :)
- XRG
Love how the 5 PCBs slot into each other to form the final shape.
With respect to the assembly: do yourself a massive favor and let the PCB fab also assemble the LEDs. With a simple bill of materials like this it will add very little cost, it saves you a _lot_ of time, and it might also reduce the chance of component damage from adding too much heat or from accidental ESD strikes. (I don’t know how much these Neopixels can handle, though.)