Introduction: Rasp Light

By stuffydo.wordpress.com/

I know there are lots of tutorials to make Ambilight with raspberry but none of them worked for me.

So I tried different steps of different manuals and I was able to make that work.

So let’s start by the parts:

  1. Raspberry pi 2 Model B
  2. Digitaler LED-strip WS2801 50 Leds RGB

Let’s talk about software for the raspberry pi.

I’ve tried Openelec and now I’m using OSMC, in openelec I couldn’t make the lights came on so I tried OSMC and everything work nice and smoothly.

Step 1: Installing OSMC on Raspberry Pi 2

First you need to download OSMC

Now download the tool to put the image in the SD card. (Win32 Disk Imager)

Open Win32 -> Select the Device(SDCARD) -> Choose the image & click write.

Turn on the raspberry pi and complete the configurations.

Step 2: The Next Step Is to Install Hyperion to Make the Lights Work.

  • Preparing your system

Download OSMC updates

sudo apt-get update

Install OSMC updates

sudo apt-get upgrade

Install pre-requisite packages

sudo apt-get install git libqtcore4
libqtgui4 libqt4-network libusb-1.0-0 libprotobuf9 ca-certificates

  • Installing Hyperion

Download Hyperion

wget -N
https://raw.github.com/tvdzwan/hyperion/master/bin/install_hyperion.sh

Install hyperion

sudo sh ./install_hyperion.sh

  • Enable GPIO's:

Enter this command:

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

Add this text to the end of the document, and then press Alt+O (Ctrl-O on Mac) to save, and Alt-X (Ctrl-X) to close, the document.

dtparam=spi=on

Step 3: Connections

Now that we have everything install and configured it’s time to connect the LEDs to Raspberry.

The LED strip has four wire connections.

  • 5v, Clk, DI & GND.

We need to connect the 5Volts and Ground wires to an external power supply, they recommend at least 5V 2Amps.

The LED strip usually came whit 2 Ground(GND) wires because you need to connect the GND to raspberry to.

So the wiring connections are:

  • CK(CLK) -> Raspberry Pin 23 (GPIO11)
  • DI -> Raspberry Pin 19 (GPIO17)
  • GND -> Raspberry Pin 20 (GND)

If some how doesn't work try to connect to the other end of the cable.

Step 4: Final Product

Now you can arrange the led behind the TV. I put 16 leds on top and bottom and 9 leds on each side.


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