Color-Copying Chameleon Lamp

2016-07-06 | By Boris Landoni

License: General Public License

Abstract Overview

This is an abstract only. For full project details, see An intelligent XMAS Lamp to Light up your Christmas!

For this project we designed a lamp capable of emitting light that is the same color as the surface it is set on. This project is based on TCS230 color recognition sensor and Arduino Uno. The project is divided into three modules:  sensor, processing and lighting based on RGB LED.

The TCS230 is powered by voltages ranging from 2.7V to 5.5V and is compatible with the outputs of microcontrollers at either 3.3V or 5V. The functioning of the sensor is based on the fact that different color nuances are attributed to a combination of the three basic colors: red, green and blue. When the filter is set for a given predominant color, for example blue, the integrated TCS230 examines only the intensity of the color considered and excludes all others. In this way it is possible to determine the blue component of the color detected. The same procedure is used to determine the intensity of the red and green components. Arduino then applies a PWM signal proportionate to the intensity of the corresponding color component detected by the sensor to the pins that drive each color.

We picked up common-cathode LEDs using the anode. This configuration is more suitable to be used with Arduino Uno.  The LED control uses three analog outputs (DAC) of Arduino Uno, which is able to convert the digital values between 0 and 255 into proportional voltage values between 0 and 5V.  Each hue in the RGB representation with eight bits of precision is represented by a tripling of values in the range 0-255, which reflects the intensity of each color component.

Wiring

The terminals S0 and S1 serve to configure the frequency range emitted from the output of the TCS230 sensor, and are connected to Arduino pins 2 and 3. The outputs S2 and S3 define which filter to use by reading the light intensity and are respectively connected to the digital outputs 6 and 5. The output terminal of the TCS230 sensor is connected to input 4 of Arduino. Finally, the three terminals of the RGB LEDs are connected to the Arduino PWM outputs 9 (R), 10 (G) and 11 (B). PWM outputs are identified by a “-” on the card serigraphy.

Project Source