Making Tuba Lights With Arduino

[mooggsentry]

Can someone share with me their knowledge with using Arduino for LED lights on a Tuba? How do you program it, set it up, and place the lights on the tuba without creating any damage?

An article or booklet with steps would be great too.

[anotherjtm2]

Seems like you have two problems. There's lots written about controlling lights with an Arduino.

So that leaves the part of putting lights on the tuba in a way you like. What do you want it to look like?

[LibraryMark]

Start here: https://www.arduino.cc/
There are a bazillion websites dedicated to learning the ardunino. Google is your friend. Look up arduino and led light strips. Arduinos are easy to program and use. There are many different models to choose from and some are really tiny.

I think you might have the most fun with an RGB LED strip. What might be fun would be to hook up microswitches to your valves. Heck - you might not even need an arduino to do that.

[basslizard]

I had my tuba lit up in school colors for pep band for about a year. Still removing the duct tape glue. Pro tip= don’t stick them on with duct tape. And maybe do use a beat up old Jupiter like mine so nobody notices the duct tape residue that you maybe missed when cleaning up your tuba to open for a Christian/Country singer’s concert.

(Small town pep band includes community musicians, not just students)

[Ernieball]

I have lights in my Sousaphone... They're not arduino controlled, they use one of these

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3-10-11-20-2 ... 2454930110

(The 20 key music one at the bottom of the list)

Lots of colour options, fade, jump or flash in time with the notes you play.

I rigged the controller up to a 12 V rechargable battery, something like this

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DC-168-12V-1 ... e1-zHvdxeA

And a strip (about 2 metres? I think?) of RGB LEDs (bright, lots of LEDs per metre - can't remember the exact specs) - there's LOTS on ebay.

Glue the LED strip to the inside of a 6 inch diameter pipe (I Think I used a heating duct pipe - about £5 for three times the length I needed), glue/gaffa tape the battery, controller, wires and lots of foam rubber to the outside of the pipe and stick it in the bell.

It looks like a Heath Robinson nightmare, but it sits just out of sight, and the lights look like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdXqjl-mJ3c

That's on the 7 colour fade option. The flash in time with the music option looks really good!
It looks better at night, obviously.

It also looks good with a bell cover, like this

https://scontent.fbhx1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/ ... e=5ED9900B

It's removable and the foam rubber means it doesn't mark the inside of your bell.

It probably does affect the sound a bit, but for a jazz band Sousy, no one minds too much... it comes out for recording or "serious" gigs.

It probably cost me about £20-£25, it was a lot of fun to make and gets lots of attention.

Let me know if you want any more info or pictures of the actual unit or anything.

If you're in the US, £=$, Gaffa tape = Duct tape and Heath Robinson = Rube Goldberg

[mooggsentry]

Thanks for the responses. I'm just getting into Arduino and I'm still waiting for some things in the mail. If something comes up again, I'll post it to this thread.

[TubaBeage]

Google "neopixel"