Atmel-powered Lumapad is an open-source LED project

The Lumapad can best be described as an open source, high intensity, 8000 lumen LED lighting system built around a user-programmable Arduino (Atmel) compatible micro-controller and an (optional) electric IMP.

According to project designer Richard Haberkern, 32 ultra-bright LEDs are positioned in a landscape array to provide bright, even and controllable lighting, drawing only 88 watts. Meanwhile, a built in electronic dimmer makes the light intensity adjustable to fit just about any environment.

“This is no ordinary bright light,” Haberkern explained. “With your own custom software, you can control the light intensity, flash effects and even the color temperature via your iPhone, Android device or any computer with an internet connection. An Arduino compatible controller along with the newly available Electric IMP WiFi SD card are both built in, [so you can] control the Lumapad any way you can imagine.”

As noted above, the Lumapad is powered by an Arduino compatible ATmega 328P micro- computer and is pin-for-pin compatible with most open source Arduino boards on the market. The ATmega328P – an 8-bit AVR RISC-based microcontroller – combines 32KB ISP flash memory with read-while-write capabilities, 1024B EEPROM, 2KB SRAM, 23 general purpose I/O lines, 32 general purpose working registers, three flexible timer/counters with compare modes, as well as internal and external interrupts.

Additional specs include a serial programmable USART, a byte-oriented 2-wire serial interface, SPI serial port, a 6-channel 10-bit A/D converter (8-channels in TQFP and QFN/MLF packages), programmable watchdog timer with internal oscillator, and five software selectable power saving modes. By executing powerful instructions in a single clock cycle, the ATmega achieves throughputs approaching 1 MIPS per MHz, balancing power consumption and processing speed.

On the software side, developing for the IMP is unlike your typical embedded development environment, as there are no SDKs to install, JTAG pods, or long download time. Rather, you develop your code in a browser-based IDE, compile it and run on the IMP in under a second. And, using the Arduino compatible micro-computer, you can write multiple programs to control a scene or room lighting.

The Arduino-powered Lumapad has already reached its funding goals on Kickstarter, with 225 backers and $94,482 pledged. Additional information can be found here on Kickstarter, or the official Lumapad website.