Hi Geoffrey,
Looks great!
Were you still using WS281x LEDs or have you shifted to analog LEDs?
There won’t be very many customisable off-the-shelf products that can control 20* 3 channels of LEDs (20 frames * 3 channels, RGB = 60 total IO)
How often will you have to change the brightness and colour? And is using WiFi essential?
In terms of price, ease of setup and time spent making sure everything works the $24 controllers are most likely the best option.
If you were looking to DIY something I’d check out the Pico W/ESP32 and use MOSFET’s to control the brightness(if you are using analog strips).
Caveats:
- Each Pico has 8 PWM controllers with 2 channels, giving 5 ‘RGB controllers’ per Pico - so you’ll need at least 4 Pico’s and all of the artworks will have to be relatively close as to reduce voltage drop
- Some extra hardware will be required, each Pico will have to be hooked up to 15 FETs and supporting resistors, to keep everything robust I’d suggest grabbing a cheap router to connect everything to
- I’ve dabbled in getting a webpage displaying from a single Pico though haven’t connected a range of them together, this might result in having to communicate to each ‘set’ of artworks to control their RGB channels (5 at a time)
If you’re keen on the Pico, I’d check out Homestation, with some modification it lets you connect to a webpage and set the RGB value of a WS2812 strip, I’d be happy reworking a bit of the software to change to PWM though I don’t have access to 5 analog strips
Here’s a guide on how to wire everything together: Usage | RGB LED Strips | Adafruit Learning System
And use PWM on the Pico: https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/getting-started-with-the-pico/7
