RGB Luxeon Lights Up and Running

All three Luxeon I LED's running and under Arduino control. These things are beasts I tell you!

Hardware

It's taken me a while to get around to building this electrical prototype but it seems to be working like a charm. Right now there are three separate National Semi driver boards powered from 9V with dimming wires connected to the Arduino for PWM. I have wide angle lenses and holders on each Luxeon Star that make each to a 20 degree beam which also let me look at them without burning out my eyes. My goal is to get these into a neat package that can be used as either an Arduino shield or standalone device with an AVR built in.

Software

I have been writing a few different pieces of software that let you control the LED's over serial. The first is a Visual C# application that has direct control (sliders for each color) and a background thread that lets you check various information sources over the web and use the light as a lo-fi information display. Some examples are checking for new email and checking for local weather information. The app uses custom firmware to communicate over serial.

The second is a Processing sketch that allows control via the iPhone using TouchOSC and the Open Sound Control protocol. This sketch uses Firmata firmware on the Arduino.

I have further plans for the software that I won't get into here but it will be just as big a part of this project as the hardware.

Below is a small video of each color being testing.

*not sure yet why green wont turn off completely