LED Lighting for a 3 Story Castle

Lighting Team for MIT's East Campus REX event

Who We Are

The MIT East Campus REX event lighting team is a group of talented undergraduate students who love electronics and lighting design. We work together to create beautiful and functional lighting systems. In addition to our work on the REX event lighting system and other electronics projects, we teach incoming MIT freshmen how to solder and set up lights. This is a great way for us to share our skills and inspire others.

For our Fall 2023 event, we are planning on setting up many LED-lit props that enhance our French Revolution theme, including Chandeliers and cannons.

Our Build

We plan on constructing a 3 story castle in the Fall of 2023. Since most of the events happen after sunset, the area needs adequate lighting to providing a welcoming place for people to gather.

The first floor will be lit from the ceiling with 24V RGBW analog strips. The first floor is typically a dance floor packed with people, so it simply needs to be lit.

On the second floor, we plan to have a chandelier, cannon, and an animated cannonball that fits our French Revolution theme. These setups require more electronics design, as they will be more seen for its artistic value. The way the light is controlled also matters, which is why custom PCBs are made for each prop.

Shown: Preliminary CAD of the castle

Chandelier LED Board

A bright, addressible LED Panel that is used to light up a chandelier prop. Designed for MIT East Campus REX, Fall 2023.

Shown: Light board for a Chandelier Prop

The chandelier light board was carefully crafted with rotational symmetry in mind. It allows for various light diffusers to be put up symmetrically, emulating a real chandelier. The addressable LEDs make it possible to show different effects by changing the color of any of the sections.

100W RGB LED Constant Current Driver

A constant current driver made to to drive 100W RGB COB LEDs

Shown: Constant Current Driver for a 100W COB LED

Another one of our props is a cannon. Since we can't light an actual cannon, we plan to use an extremely bright 100W LED as the flash. This LED requires a special constant current driver, which is shown above. It is able to be controlled over Wi-Fi using the ESP8266, allowing for the remote triggering of the cannon flash. The color can also be tuned by changing the current of the R,G,and B diodes in the LED.

PCBWay's support would be immensely helpful to our lighting team. Our designs are still in the early prototype stage, and are awaiting the lighting electronics before they can be more refined. We need quick and reliable PCBAs in order to refine our ideas and have working props by the Fall. Being able to have multiple boards fabricated quickly would allow us to have another successful year, not just for our lighting team, but the MIT community that comes to enjoy our build and light show.