I made a lamp out of small parts of selenite crystal, a crystal wich, naturally, looks awesome with light. It is controlled by an arduino Nano, and so it has endless possibillities for lighting effects. I've just used a simple Potentiometer to change the color. ( See my code at step 6 )

The RGB LED's I used are single LED's off of a 144LED / meter strip, and are really small and quite hard to solder. If you're a beginner at soldering, or just want something a bit easier, I reccomend using leds off of a 60 or even 30 LED's/meter strip, as seen in the fourth image.

Supplies

A slab of selenite

A slab wood ( I used some spare cherry )

one arduino nano

4x RGB WS12B leds

small wire

3D printer ( optional )

1 10k potentiometer

1 6v 500mA mains adapter ( optional, you can also power it from 5V directly via the arduino port. )

glue

Step 1: Get a Slab of Wood

We had part of a cherry tree lying around, so I used a slab of this. I am not great at woodworking, so I left the slab as it is.

The slab I used is around 5CM thick, but you can always go thicker or thinner if you wish. Try to get this as flat as possible, it will look way better and be a bit easier to make.

Step 2: Gather Small Pieces of Stone.

For the best results, you'll want these pieces to be roughly the same size, and with a flat bottem/top, as we will place them on top of each other later.

I did this by first sawing a big slab of the stone, ( as straight as possible ), then carefully using a hammer to break it into smaller parts.

The parts I used are about 5 CM high, and 2 cm wide. Be sure to save the smaller splinters that will come off, as they are great to fill up some space later on.

Step 3: Building!

Now, the most important part of the lamp, the base. I reccomend soldering the leds one at a time, with longer wires than neccesairy, so you have space to cut them down if needed, or strip them more easily.

I firstly soldered really long wires to the first led ( Mind the data direction, indicated by a small arrow.) these will be used to connect them to the arduino later on. after glueing one of the leds to the wood base, with wires connected, I started to place the stones around it, without glue, to find a design I liked. After I found that, I glued them down.

Be sure to let the glue dry before starting the second layer! The time needed will change depending on the glue you used. I waited for about an hour between layers. You'll also notice some glue will have a really hard time sticking to the crystals, so be sure it can dry in a stable position.

Step 4: Keep on Going!

Now, it is just repeating step 3!

Be sure to glue the leds in first, as they can be difficult to hold still on the same place so the glue can dry, and dont forget the wires! After that, just keep on glueing the stones to the previous layer!

I made 3 layers, but you can always go more or less if you so desire =D

Step 5: Connecting the Wires, and Uploading the Code!

After all that, we're almost done!

You only need to connect the wires to the arduino!

There are 3 wires on the LED.

The middle one is always data, connect this to any digital pin of the arduino. ( I used pin 4. )

The outer two are for power: 5V and ground.
5V will be marked with either "5V" or "+", and you can connect this one to the 5V pin on the arduino.

ground is marked as "GND" or "-", and that goes to one of the GND pins on the arduino.

For code, you can use any code you want, any effect is possible! I used a simple pot ( see next step ) to change the color on a hue scale, but anything is possible. For an easy example, I reccomend FastLED demo 100 by Kriegsman Be sure to change the settings to your strip/setup!

Or, check my code at step 6, for controll with a potentiometer!

Step 6: ( OPTIONAL ) Add the Potentiometer

If you want to use a potentiometer to controll the color, You'll need to do this step too.

The pot, you'll see, also has 3 wires. Once again, the outer ones are for power, the middle one is for data.

Connect either of the outer ones to 5V on the arduino, and the other outer one to GND. The middle one connects to any analog pin. ( I used A0 ).

You can download the code I used below:

Download my code here