I LOVE neon. I love the hum of the transformer, the flicker of a dying tube, their tenacity surviving the outdoor elements while still being so fragile.
Faux LED neon doesn’t have any of that joy BUT if we infuse it with animation we can push further towards the 1930s-era dreams of moving neon signs.
LED strip is tough, flexible, and cheap — combined with kinetic mechanisms, it lets us create Tron-like automatas glowing and alive, suspended in the air.
Mechanism
My version of this idea is a blinking, squinting and sometimes flickering eyeball.The reciprocating lid movement comes from a barrel cam, driven by a geared motor via a TB6612 motor driver. The pupal being occluded by the eyelids is achieved using indexable WS2812 LED strip.
You can check out my repo for reference but more so I hope that others make their own versions and we can all collaborate to make something that inspires awe and curiosity in its viewers.
Closing
I really think is is a could technique and I would love to see something like this lighting up a storefront — I would even settle for AliExpress knockoffs cluttering up my component listings.
You can watch the full video complete with glorious Tron music here.