As an interesting gift for his children, and also an interesting experiment with RFID and RGB LED strips Philippe Chrétien has created an interactive and colourful lamp based. By mounting an RFID reader in the base of the lamp, and using the Arduino as the brains of the controller - lamp colours can be assigned to seperate RFID cards which allows the children to change the colours safely and have some fun.
Apart from creating a custom lamp base Philippe has also made a seperate Arduino shield containing N-MOSFETS to safely control the higher voltage and current for the LEDs. And as shown below the final result is well done:
If you're interested in making your own, Philippe has provided all the schematics and other diagrams, so visit his website to get started. And for more, we're on twitter and Google+, so follow us for news and product updates as well.
If you don't have the time or inclination to make your own PCBs, consider adding your own external circuitry to protoype with an Arduino or compatible board, pm one or more of our range of ProtoShields. From the tiny LeoStick to the Mega range, we offer a complete range for you to work with.
