Music LED Light Box

My original LED light cube got allot of reactions. Some of them where about making the LED's react to music. This did sound very interesting and I found some instructables on here.
Unfortunately I found it very hard to understand those instructables. In my opinion they weren't explained well enough and even some circuits weren't correct.

That's why I though I build one and make an instructable of it. I tried to make this instructable so easy, that everyone with or without any experience can make one!

If you make one, don't forget to share your end result photos and movies with us.

Below you'll see the end result of my Music LED Light Box.

The movie is shot with my Canon Digital Camera, in the dark. My camera can't handle the fast switching between light and dark very well. In reality the effect is even nicer then on the video.



Before people go asking who's music or what songs these are in this video, these beats are made by my brother.  :)
You can visit his website www.motabeatz.com or  YouTube channel for more information and songs.

Step 1 Materials & Tools

To make this Music LED Light Box you can use many different things and build it different ways.
In this instructable I'll explain how I made it, a very simple way.

Materials
- 12v Adapter (a battery can be used as well)
- 3.5 jack headphone cable.
- tip31 transistor (this is the key to the whole project) - $0.50
- 5mm LED's (the color or amount is totally up to you, 1 LED per 3v. I used 12v, so 4 LEDs) - $0.28
- A4 acrylic sheet - 3mm thick (also known as 'plexiglass') - $2.00
- Fine sandpaper (I used 400) - $1.00
- Electrical Wire

If you see a price above, that means I bought it. The rest I just ripped of some old junk. The 12v Adapter was from an old wireless headphone and the 3.5 jack plug is from another old headphone.

Tools
- Jigsaw (also a Jeweler Saw can be used. But that's really hard to get straight lines)
- Glue Gun (hot glue, other glue to glue acrylic is possible)
- Drilling tool
- Solder tool (optional)
- Pen

Ones you've got this stuff you're ready to begin!

Comments

[arp001]

How would I make this circuit more sensitive and less sensitive to the sound levels. I'm new in electrons so more specific would be appreciated (i.e. specific resistors or transistors). I just built this project and it works great. I want to build a box that has different color LEDs that are sensitive to specific levels of sound. So the some LEDs will be on a low threshold circuit, some with a higher threshold, and some on an even higher.

[mr.johndeer1]

buy a variable resistor at Radioshack. Basically the same as a volume knob. If you are having problems with it staying constantly lit and bright, insert it right after the power supply and adjust it to your preference.

[Kipkonijn]

how can you hear the music??
when i connect mine to my ipod i cant hear the music. how do you that.
(i'm sorry for my bad english, i'm dutch)

[mr.johndeer1]

Headphone splitter, one goes to speakers one to the LED box.

[vincentstockdale]

Can you wire this in parralel please respond because otherwise I cant light my strip lights because they are 12 volts every two and I have four and won't light in series

[xredvortex]

Ok i have a problem with the audio wires. one of them has red and gold wires while other one has green and gold. im assuming its right with ground and left with ground? I tried doing red with opposite wire's ground and vice versa but still doesnt work. help!

[vincentstockdale]

i had the same thing. just twist the red and green together, an the gold/copper color together. then just treat the red and green as one wire and connect them to ur left pin pn the tip31 chip and follow the scematic in the same way for everything else. (hope this makes sense!)

[nick_3131]

Take a Lighter to the end of your wires, It may not look like it but the red and green and gold are actually a plastic coating, a lighter will burn that right off, then take the two grounds (gold) and twist em together, then just use either the red or the green wire as the other wire you need

[simply stellar]

I've having some troubles with this. When I connect my LED to the farthest left pin of the TIP31 I get some constant light but when I connect it to the middle pin nothing happens. I'm using the headphone part from old apple earbuds if that makes a difference.

[dseter]

I'm having the same issue. Constant light on either side pin and no light on the middle pin. I thought maybe it was the transistor, but I changed it out for a new TIP31 with the same results. My schematic is slightly different. Any thoughts on why this might be happening?

[vincentstockdale]

are u sure your looking at the front of the tip 31 when connecting the wires. you might have the right confused with the left causing problems.

[AlexT2010]

I have done the exact diagram as above, except with one Led just to try it out. It works when i use a wall charger for a phone, 120-110 to 5v and it works perfectly, but when i try this on the battery in my car nothing happens, Any ideas?

[vincentstockdale]

if your going to attach this to ur car battery u need to have resistors so that u dont blow out ur led's causing them to break.

[greysonn93]

your power input is too high to properly run the LED. you can only have so much power going into one before it wont work. Try adding more leds or find out what resistors to add to it. try using this website to calculate it http://led.linear1.org/led.wiz

[bunso]

can it use any players? like chine mp4 or mp3? can this player can light up the led?

[fs337]

I would predominantly use this for an IPhone, how well would it work on there? I have seen some comments about low power lights.

[Sakul]

Hey,

my question is: Is there any possibility to get this effect with a RGB LED Stripe and a RGB Controller? They are based on 12 V. But the RGB LED Stripes have 4 Wires one for red colour, one green, one blue and one for the Anode. Do i have to connect every for wires each with a Tip32?

Thx for helping me..

[Sakul]

can i integrate the TIP31 in to this circuit?

[chunkyblamm]

Did you ever figure this out? I am trying to do the same thing but I wanted to power the LEDs off of a separate 12v source with the transistor on them. This way the power to the IR sensor and the controller would remain constant. I believe it would be possible with a TIP32 transistor wired differently but I am not sure. I'm learning as I go along. Let me know if you have any info on this. Thanks

[SteSurfer]

Hello! I'm new in this forum and I have followed your instructions to build this nice project, but there is a problem: Leds work at 50 % and they don't works totally...can someone explain me why and suggest me another transistor to use? I've tried leds with I phone and I pod and they don't work, they don't turn on...but with my notebook they work but at 50%.
Thank youu =)

[Er0rcH0]

Can TIP31 transistor instead to put TIP31C #

[zigzagchris]

can someone point me towards a website where you can order these parts for that price. Im unfamiliar with component shopping.

[wcurren]

check out either http://www.jameco.com/ or ebay. i get a lot of my leds and what not on ebay for cheap

[ColdKeyboard]

I haven't been able to make the LED music box based on your tutorial but I've designed my own with 6 LED and split them into the left + right channel for better visual appearance :D
However, your post inspired me to make them. Also in near future I will make some fancy case for them and place them in my room :)

Here is the short video I made just to show you how does it look.
LEDs are running on 5V DC so you can power them from USB or even battery.

[jockkitto16]

that is seriously awesome! i'm going to make one of those as soon as i get the chance! BTW i like your taste in music :P

[bsakach]

hey could you please send me a diagram of how you wired this? I'm working on a project and would love to have left/right channels. Thanks for the help.

[ColdKeyboard]

Here you go. Cheers.

[acarballo]

Very Neat, but can i ask you a question? How exactly do you get to play music AND have the audio jack from the led box at the same time? you use one of those audio splitters?

[musaib jan]

yes you need an audio splitter or you can make the connections of ur led box to ur sound system.

[musaib jan]

yes you need an audio splitter or you can make the connections of ur led box to ur sound system.

[nilnate519]

Yes, and they are fairly cheap, but if you want to play on speakers instead of headphones you might also want to get a male 3.5 jack from radio shack which has a way to plug in for your speakers to the splitter.

[ColdKeyboard]

You can buy audio splitter or you can create your own from audio extension cable. You cut the top female jack and solder it near the male jack at the bottom and then those 3 wires you get at the top you solder to base of your transistors. You put the male jack in the sound card and the speakers jack in the female jack of the extension cable. :)

I hope you understood what I was saying... if not I will try to create an image of how-to make that cable.

[G3orge26]

Hello .... well i have to say that this is epic ... however led are quite ennoying in terms of positioning so i made this using led tape :DD and i have an important question to ask..... are you ready ?? :| is there any way to make this so that the really bass notes play ,say, in red color and the more light notes play in white color .. ?? ( sorry if this is hard to understand but i can't explain it better ...)
what im trying to say is that the colors of this box range between white and some other color .... :P

[MayExplode]

If you want that I recommend this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubQC839Pvqk :3 hope that helps

[akinich]

thanks for that
it was what i was looking for!!!! :)

[ARGMISTER]

It would require and amplifier/filter. easiest way is to just hook these up to a surround sound with the input signals for one string of leds coming from the subwoofer and 1 string of leds for the speakers.

[MayExplode]

Could this circuit also be wired in parallel? and is there no current limiting resistor?

[bridgersjosh]

HI, could you tell me if this is possible, how can you make this so you can have a switch were you can select music mode soild color or not on at all and be able to select wich one you wanted, is this possible? thanks!

[ARGMISTER]

Use the wiring diagram in this instructable to have it switch between constant on and flash with music. I dont think you can have not at all, maybe a 3 position switch?
http://www.instructables.com/id/Blinking-leds/#step1

[GhettoNinja4]

is there a way to add an amp to this project in order to make the lights flash brighter on a lower volume? quick reply would be appreciated!