Bringing state-of-the-art LED Lighting to Hobbyists
The Saiko5 Light Fixture incorporates a Light Brick 5 and a Light Shield 7 along with case, power supply, and Arduino UNO into a single fixture with the Saiko5 Firmware is installed on the included Arduino UNO to allow for wireless control of the light fixture. The Saiko5 Software gives examples for how to control the fixture using the firmware and a computer running PureData and Python.
Warning: If you choose to assemble your own light fixture, your warranty will be limited. The below plans are provided "as-is", and no warranty express or implied is offered for fixtures not constructed in entirety by saikoLED, LLC. If the components sold by saikoLED and assembled by customer are damaged due to improper assembly, the customer is responsible for the repairs.
If you require a warranty beyond our standard 14-day return policy for undamaged goods, please purchase a complete Saiko5 fixture, which is assembled entirely by our staff. We can not be responsible for damage caused to our products due to customer assembly whether done according to the below plans or not.
The Light Shield 7 with case includes the Light Shield 7 along with the case and necessary fasteners for attaching an Arduino UNO and Light Shield 7 to the Light Shield 7 Case and completing case assembly. The Light Brick 5 with case includes the Light Brick 5, acrylic faceplate, cylindrical housing, back plate, gooseneck, and the necessary fasteners for attaching the Light Brick 5 to the back plate, the cylinder to the back plate and acrylic face place, and to attach the gooseneck to the back plate. It does not include terminated wires as these must generally be inserted at the last stage of assembly. The connectors do not fit through the gooseneck or the hole in the Light Brick 5, so wires must be strung first and attached to a IDC connector on each side as shown in the assembly instructions below.
First, collect the parts needed to attach the Arduino UNO to the back plate of the Light Shield 7 case. Use three black oxide spacers, and three standoffs placed into the machined 4-40 holes in the case. The spacer will result in the threading on the standoffs being just long enough to reach the other side of the 1/8" thick aluminum and are necessary to avoid the threads sticking out of the back of the case. Next, place the arduino on the standoffs and attach using a plastic washer to protect the board, and the included 4-40 screws. Leave the screws loose in order to allow assembly of the cover.
The next step is to slide the edge of the cover between the Arduino UNO and the side of the back face. The rectangular holes on the cover should line up with the USB port on the Arduino UNO. After sliding the cover on, use a screwdriver to tighten the two screws which are easily accessible, and hand tighten the more difficult to reach screw near the USB port. When we do this, we make sure to squeeze the board and back face together so that there is no tension working against tightening. After the screws are tight, plug in the Light Shield 7 with the fuse and barrel jack on the side facing the rectangular holes. Be sure that you plug the header into the Arduino UNO fully, and that no pins are missing the hole they are intended to be attached to.
After the Arduino UNO and Light Shield 7 are installed, the case can be easily closed. The grooves on the flanges will align, the grooves on the lip will line up with the holes in the cover, and the USB port and barrel jack should stick out of the rectangular holes.
First the antenna mounting parts need to be modified in order to adapt them for use with 1/8" aluminum. They were designed for 1/16" aluminum cases, so the snap-in clips are positioned incorrectly for mounting on our case. The antenna package contains two different mounting pieces, one with a hexagonal cross section and the other circular. We take the circular piece, and pry off the snap-in clips with tweezers. This leaves us with two snaps, antenna, and a mounting piece with two holes where the snaps used to be.
The modified antenna mounting piece is then slid into the large circular hole opposite the USB and barrel jack rectangular holes. The "lip" of the antenna mounting piece should be facing towards the closer edge so that when it is mounted the antenna is free to rotate in the correct orientation.
The mounting piece can be pushed easily into the 7/16" hole in the case. Because there are no longer snaps to prevent the piece from falling back out, we place a small dab of epoxy on the mountin piece on each side to hold it in place. Next, the antenna wire is strung through the mounting piece from the outside of the case to the inside of the case.
The antenna is snapped into place by pushing it through the mounting piece. It will snap into place and should not be easily pulled back through. After pushing the antenna into place, the antenna can be bent using the outside joint and rotated through 180 degrees centered straight "up" when mounted on a wall.
After threading wires (not included) through the flex arm and the controller case, the flex arm is threaded into the 1/4" NPS threaded hole in the center of the front face of the controller case. After threading through the hole, the flex arm is held in place by using the included washer and hex nut.
Next, the five wires must be terminated with an appropriate connector such as a 5-pin TDC MTA100 style IDC connector. The part we use for this purpose is the 3-640440-5 from Tyco Electronics. However, the pin header is standard 0.1", so any 0.1" should fit the header. Use the header to connect the wires to the 5-pin header on the Light Shield 7.
The antenna u.fl connector can be attached from the antenna wire to the WiFi module. This should snap into place, but is a little tricky. Next, the six 1/4" 6-32 black oxide machine screws are used to close the case. There is one screw that goes into the middle of each flange (from the flex arm side of the case in), and two screws that go into the lip of the back face into the side of the cover. We put these screws in loosely first in order to ensure good alignment, and then tighten down. For tightening, start with the screws on the flanges, and then do the screws on the lip to ensure that the case closes all of the way. Due to the manufacturing method used to form the cases (computer aided bending), there is some intrinsic error in the accuracy of the bends. To adjust for the tolerance issues intrinsic in the machining process, the screws are designed to be matched up with a groove instead of two holes so that there is more freedom to realign the parts to make them match nicely.
The Light Brick 7 with case is assembled by first attaching the populated Light Brick 7 to the back plate and heat sink. This piece is made of anodized aluminum, and so has high thermal conductivity to help prevent the LEDs on the board from overheating and being damaged. Use of the Light Brick 7 board without a heat sink will result in frequent thermal cycling of the solder joints and the semiconductor die, which causes LED burn out, LED decreases in brightness, and as solder joints are cyclically stressed, can cause soldering failure. Attaching the Light Brick 7 to the back plate requires four 1/2" black machine screws, four plastic washers, and four nuts.
To attach the LED board, line up the holes on the Light Brick 7 board with the aluminum back plate, and push through the machine screws from the back plate side. Next, use one plastic washer, and one nut in order to secure the board to the back plate. The connection here must be quite tight in order to achieve adequate thermal conductivity and heat sinking.
Next, attach the newly attached board and back plate to the flex arm, which should not be already attached to the Light Shield 7 case and have wires (unterminated) exposed. Tighten the flex arm to the board using included plastic washer and 1/4" NPS washer.
After firmly attaching the flex arm to the back plate with attached LED board, terminate the wires using a IDC connector such as the MTA100 style connectors from Tyco Electronics mentioned above. This will plug into the exposed header on the LED board. In order to avoid seeing shadows from the wiring, try to run the wiring along the board underneath the lenses in order to take up any remaining slack. You can also do this connection before sealing up the controller case and pull the slack through the flex arm in the other direction. Next, attach the cylinder to the back plate with four 1/2" 6-32 black screws. Again, the connection must be tight in order to ensure good thermal conductivity. The screws have a bit of room to compensate for tolerances in the roundness of the cylinder, so you should attempt to center the cylinder as well as possible to avoid a lip from the back plate sticking out over the edge of the cylinder.
Finally, attach the acrylic protective shield to the other side of the anodized aluminum cylinder in order to prevent damage to the LED board. Attach by using plastic washers and 1/2" 6-32 screws in order to avoid cracking. Use of metal washers will crack the acrylic shield if tightened too far. Additionally, acrylic will frost and become opaque or break if exposed to some solvents. Before attempting to wash the shield, make certain that your solvent is compatible with acrylic. In general, the shield does not need to be very clean in order to achieve excellent optical clarity in the spotlight beam itself.
Finally, if you are constructing a light without firmware preinstalled, the Arduino UNO has no code on it with which to control what the light fixture does. You will need to continue by downloading and installing the Saiko5 Firmware as described in the Firmware Documentation.