Category: Electronics

When I was looking around trying to get this all working, I read in several places that this project required an Arduino. Well, I am here to tell you no it does not, in fact, the Arduino added an entirely new level of frustration.

Let’s begin with the required parts.

Hardware:

• Raspberry Pi 3 Model B
• You may want a case, I used this:  Argon Fan Hat
• SD Card 8GB should be plenty
• HDMI Splitter
• USB HDMI Video Capture
• 100 Ohm Resistor
• WS2812B LED Strip
• USB Breakout Block
• 5 Volt Switching Power Supply (Make sure enough wattage for your LEDs Read Here for more info.)

Software:

• Hyperbian
• Balena Etcher

The first thing you will want to do is put the LED strip around the back of your TV have them facing the wall so the light will reflect off of the wall properly. There are multiple ways to making the corners, I just folded my strip over and kept the line going.  I recommend starting your strip at the bottom left of your TV (Left if facing from the front) and go in a clockwise direction. Count how many LEDS you have on each side.  I had 86 on top and bottom and 49 on each side. You will need to know this information later.

Install Hyperbian to the Raspberry Pi.

Once you have the latest Hyperbian image download you will want to flash the image to your SD Card. This process is as simple as 1 2 3.

Launch BalenaEtcher

Press Select image and then choose the Hyperbian image you just downloaded.

Select the drive to burn to (NOTE THIS WILL ERASE WHATEVER DRIVE YOU CHOOSE, CHOOSE WISELY)

Press Flash.

You should have 2 new partitions on mounted on your machine after the flashing is complete, one of these ‘BOOT’ should be writable, head there and:

Run Notepad
In a new file put in one space and nothing more
Click File / Save As …
Be sure to set Save as type to All Files (so the file is NOT saved with a .txt extension)
Call the file ssh and save it
Close the file

Then create a file named wpa_supplicant.conf then use the contents below in it. Be sure to set the proper Network Name (SSID) and Password.

country=US
ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid=”<NETWORK-NAME>”
psk=”<NETWORK-PASSWORD>”
}

Put the SD card in the raspberry pi and power it up with a good quality power supply.

Configure Hyperion

You will need to know the IP address of your Pi to continue, look in your router’s DHCP tables, or use software like Angry IP to scan your network.

Once you have the IP open a browser window and put http://IP_ADDRESS:8090. This will load the Hyperion configuration screen.

You are interested in the Configuration link.

No changes need to be made to General tab.

LED Hardware will require some changes. Below are my settings for both LED Controller & LED Layout, you may need to play with gap position and input position to get it right. If you have no gaps then things are easier.

 

Capturing Hardware Tab:

 

I made no other changes to the software.

Hooking it all up

The overall flow of everything looks like this:

Wiring the LEDs to power and the Raspberry Pi. I soldered the 100-ohm resistor inline. I also used a three-wire quick connect for plugging into the LED Strip easier.

Only thing remaining is powering the Pi, and Splitter. You can do this anyway you want, you may power the splitter off of the Pi and then use a good quality power supply for the Pi. I used USB terminal block as shown here.Only the outside two terminals need wired the one on the left looking at it (Pin 4) is your ground from the power supply, and the one on the right (Pin 1) is the +5vdc from the power supply. I put two of these in and plugged everything to them.

 

 

That really is it, not a lot to it. Should be able to do this project in an hour give or take 4 days.