A pyramid of light
The printed parts became joints for a wooden frame. We wrapped it in the same green mesh as our very first cloud and covered it in LED pixels.
The printed parts from last week turned out to be joints. Wooden dowels slot into them, and together they make a low pyramid: light enough to hang, and easy to take apart again.
The mesh comes back
In May, green plastic garden mesh was our first attempt at a cloud body. It was too heavy-looking and too opaque, and we moved on to tulle. Now it came back as a skin for the skeleton. Stretched over the dowels and tied at every edge, it gives the lights something to hold on to.
Strings of addressable LED pixels are zip-tied across each face in rows, every bulb pointing outwards. Each pixel can take its own colour, which is what makes gradients, travelling light and lightning possible. A pyramid places those pixels at different depths inside the cloud, so light can seem to move through it rather than across a flat panel.
Without injecting power periodically along the line, 5 V string lights suffer voltage drop: setting all pixels to full white causes the furthest LEDs along the strand to fade into amber and yellow. Injecting power every 100 pixels keeps the voltage steady and colours true across the whole cloud.
Keeping the power cool
The electronics had their own casualty. The first buck converter we bought overheated and broke, so we attached a small fan to the second one to keep it cool.
Painting it white
Green mesh under white fibre would tint every colour we tried to make, so next the whole pyramid was masked and sprayed white.
Next, it needs a body: something soft and cloud-like around it that the light can glow through.