This Xmas- star measures 50cm in diameter from left- tip to right-tip. I printed it with glow in the dark ABS, white. It glows in very faint green, it is just enough to glow a little and keeps your eyes focused on the star when it is not lit.
If you make the star legs watertight with silicon sealant, the star can easily be attached to an outside wall, door or fence.
The power supply to the Arduino Nano is 5V DC.
You can use a long 3-wire cable between the Nano and the Xmas star to keep the electronics mounted inside the house and the star outside, or as I did: hang the star inside, in front of any window. I have the star hanging in my front door window, which gives amazing effect due to the non-transparant glass.
Or you can mount the Nano in a small watertight (3d printed) box close to the star and power the nano with 5V.
The programming can be altered to make the light effects behaviour any way you like. I usually have a non-stroboscopic fluent scene running.
You need to print 5 star points, feed the LEDs through them and then have the wires come out somewhere. You can glue the points together with hotglue or transparent silicone sealant after assembly and testing.
Solder the 3 wires of the WS2812 LED string to the Arduino Nano (5V to 5V, Gnd to Gnd and the Data IN of the LED string to D3 of the Arduino Nano. That’s it! After that you can connect the Arduino to your PC with a data USB cable and download the code from my website.
If you don’t have the Arduino IDE yet, download the app from the Microsoft website (Arduino IDE) nor from the Arduino cummunity forum.
Make sure you download my Arduino code and open it with the Arduino IDE APP. Probably the APP will have to move the arduino INO file to a new directory but that should do the trick. If not, start the Arduino app, open my code in notepad and copy/paste it as fully new code into Arduino: Replace the example code that automatically opens when you open the Arduino program/app with my code. Save it and rum it to see wether you need to add any library. For adding libraries, find general help in the Arduino forum. In my code, you can find the names of the required libraries.
In the Arduino IDE select the right microprocessor (Arduino Nano). Then select the correct processor version (large or small memory) and the old or new bootloader. These choices depend on the type of Nano you bought or still had lying around. Then you choose the right port (USB) for your Nano.
To test if you have connection between IDE and Nano , you can ask if the Arduino IDE can read your Nano. Only then you can start loading the Nano with the complicated program.
Cheers!
The 3d print file for the BIG star is in my webshop HERE.
The Arduino programming file is HERE.
The STL files for the 50cm star are HERE.