LED system for sailboats by 8bitlogic

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Sailboat mounting system for Neopixel Strips. This project used 4-5 meter (150 per meter) WS2812B addressable LED strips. The printed brackets zip tie to the suspension cable, power cables zip tie to the bracket the LED strip hangs down below the power cables from a channel in the bracket.
I designed a bracket to attach the LEDs to the guide cord and a box to hold all the electronics, controller, fuse, and DC x DC converters.
All parts were designed in 123D. I had tried a few different designs for the brackets before coming up with one that allows gravity to face the LEDs down in relation to the suspension cord.
The system runs on 12v battery power and is controlled via a RF key fob.
I wound up using a Arduino Mega 2560 since I want to be able to expand and add control features to the system without worrying about memory space or IO pins (future expansion).
The electronics box requires no screws internally to hold the electrical components form moving. I used a combination of integrated brackets and printed parts to hold all the electronics in to minimize the need for screws.
The box top and bottom interlock and is sealed with a gasket printed in flexible filament.
While designing how the box and top will fit, I focused on one corner and modified the design and printed small test fit pieces until I found dimensions that worked, then applied that design to the rest of the box.