“You might know the Pixelstick. “nothing compares” is one of their statements. And this is true. At least price-wise. The Original Pixelstick retails for EURO 399,– here in Germany. I have always wanted one to at least try out some lightpainting with it.
The Pixelstick is a 188cm RGB lightstrip on a stick that plays bitmap files. It weighs 1,6kg, has a nice display to select files, has a remote release and runs on 8 AA batteries. Oh and it comes in a nice bag. Still 399,– is a bit steep.
THE DIY APPROACH
So I decided to build my own Pixelstick. As I have never handled the real thing, I don’t know the kind of features it has, but I know exactly which features I want in a device like this:
USB powered
SD Card Slot
Display to select files
Custom values for
Brightness
Speed
Start delay
Repeat times
Small
Lightweight
Luckily, Michael Ross already built something like this and it has some of the features, that I want. Software wise it runs an Arduino sketch. Hardware wise I think it is a bit dated and way to big. I am not a fan of the large Arduino MEGA and the LCD Display shield as it makes the device unnecessarily large, so I decided to swap some parts.”