The Plexi Project’s goal is to give life to a LED backlit plexiglass photo print I made.

The original photo is a vertical panorama shot downtown Montreal. I had it professionally LED framed by Fulux. But I feel the piece is missing a little life of it’s own. When I want to see it, I have to turn it on manually.

I figure there are two variables controlling the intensity of the print’s lighting:

1. People: There has to be people in the room potentially looking at the piece or being illuminated by it.
2. Ambient Lighting: The ambient light should control the amount of light driving the print so that it blends into it’s environment.

So I will make a dual sensor from a photo resistor and an IR motion detector.

List of parts used for the “Proof of Concept”

1. Arduino Uno
2. Passive Infrared Sensor (PIR)
3. Photo resistor
4. TIP 120 Mosfet
5. 2x 220 ohm resistors
6. 10k resistor
7. 2x male power connectors
8. female power connector

I’m think about using this Mini PIR from Parallax for the project. Since I want the attention to be on the print instead of on the electronics ;-) The range is not as long, but I think it will be good enough.