A “Rings of Saturn” Music Visualizing LED Pendant

Programmable LEDs, and particularly LED strips, have revolutionized the lighting effects that Makers and hardware hackers can pull off with relative ease. For a really amazing and refined example of what can be done with this type of light, YouTuber “Modustrial Maker” created his “Rings of Saturn” pendant using sections of walnut sandwiched between another ring of plywood. The middle layer was constructed with a smaller diameter than the outer layers, making a great place to recess the LED strips.

Though the video seen here is more about the physical woodworking process, Modustrial Maker notes that he used an electret microphone for input and a six-channel RF receiver with remote, connected to an Arduino Mega.

Since I designed this for my living room, the music syncing had to be incognito. With this in mind, I used warm white / cool white / amber LED strips, instead of RGB strips. In solid white mode, the rings give off various shades of white for a sophisticated modern look that hides the wild side when you switch the light to music visualizer mode.

If you’re interested in how to put the electronics together, here’s a sound-reactive LED tutorial for more insight.