The bloom lights are coming along well, though the amount of actual construction work involved is kind of wearing me out. I’ve finished the electrical work on the first of the pair, and while I haven’t written any of the actual firmware yet, I set up a little random flicker demo which shows that the lighting effect at least basically works. It’s a little less bright than I’d hoped, but that might actually turn out to be a good thing – it’ll be displayed in low-light environments, and it’s meant to be looked at, not to illuminate its surroundings. The diffuser system works really well: it looks cool, the light has a strong sense of motion, and you can’t see any of the wires or the circuit board while the effect is running.

I recorded a little video last night, which I will try to embed here later. The actual animation will be far less spasmodic than what you see here – smooth shifts, throbbing pulses, and slow fades are more what I have in mind.