I finally got around to making a light-switch for the chandelier.  Weirdly, this wasn’t a huge priority – since the chandelier can be controlled from my main computer, I didn’t need to make a dedicated switch to control it.  Having a light-switch on the wall nearby, though, is convenient.  I didn’t want to always have to run over to my computer just to turn the light on.

It’s nothing all that fancy.  I cut the green acrylic for the faceplate from a piece leftover from the chandelier.  The yellow acrylic flower was an extra from the flowers I laser cut for the chandelier.  I put some silvery mirrored paper behind each of the acrylic pieces.

It communicates wirelessly with the chandelier.  Since the chandelier can be controlled by two different devices (my main computer and the light-switch), the last position of the light-switch’s dial doesn’t necessarily convey the chandelier’s brightness; so I put a ring of LEDs around the dial as an indicator.  For the same reason, I used a rotary-encoder instead of a potentiometer for the dial.  I didn’t bother getting printed-circuit boards made just for this project.  Instead I was able to hack one of the circuit-boards I had made for my general purpose sensor nodes.  It isn’t pretty since it has wires soldered directly some of the microcontroller board’s pins, but it works just fine.

Sooo, until I think of more things to change, this brings the chandelier project to a close.  I feel kind of empty now … kinda like I need a new project … maybe a weather display or some automation for my garden or a lightning detector or …  ;)