Wiring and Lighting - "Sam Did Not Wait"

After installing the lighting and wiring everything up, the Booknook is effectively done. Since this will have dynamic lighting, all LEDS are wired to an Arduino Nano ($5) and I just grabbed software from previous nooks for the Phial of Galadriel, the fire lit "window in the tower glowing red," and the mode switch logic.  Programming the Nano for dynamic effects will be covered in detail in another post.

Lighting the Tower

A pin vice (small hand drill) was used to create a window in the tower layer.  Once cut, a piece of PVA glue was attached behind it to diffuse the light from the LEDs in teh next step.

LEDs with resistors then hot glued to the backside of the tower layer with red on the sides and yellow in the middle.  These LEDs will illuminate only the sky backdrop. And in the future I may program these LEDs to give the appearance of slow eruptions from Mount Doom.

A single red and yellow LED were also glued behind the window.  This was then covered with foil to prevent the flickering window lighting pattern from also illuminating the sky behind.

I find it nice to organize circuits like this with hot glue.

Top Lights and Switch

Two large white LEDs were installed in the top front of the nook.

These LEDs were tested for position and illumination prior to final installation with hot glue.  The LEDs are installed on a foam bar raised away from a window the ceiling allowing limited illumination of the rear.  In the back of the nook, the dark form of the tower will interrupt the red sky and we don't want any white light back there.

The window for these lights was covered in parchment paper, which is attached with PVA glue (as shown in the photo).

Confirming the illumination from above does not light the back of the nook.

A push button switch was installed on the same circuit such that only three wires needed to be routed through the corner of the backdrop to the top of the nook.

Note the aluminum foil behind the stairs terrain will prevent any light from inadvertently bleeding through the terrain.  

I actually screwed this up the switch wiring and needed to connect the ground pin of my Front LEDs to the Arduino Nano.  The front LEDs are always powered and instead the Digital Output pin grounds the connection.  Since the front lights will not be dynamic and the number of PWM pins on the Nano is limited, the switch and LEDs for this circuit were powered from the 3.3V pin instead of 5V.

Final Installation of the Tower Layer

With all wires now routed, the Tower was installed and the left side of the nook permanently glued on.

The tower layer shown above has a thin substructure of bass wood.  So a channel for it was created with strips of foam. 

Then the tower was hot glued in place.

The left wall was glued on and the top made flush with foam pieces for wood cladding later.

Connecting the Arduino Nano

All of the wires were then soldered to the pins on the Arduino Nano.

 

This nook can now be powered directly from a USB type power supply.