Illuminated World Map - Bigelow Tea Plantation
Museum
North Carolina
The display is a 12 foot x 6 foot world map. Currently installed in the Bigelow Museum in North Carolina. There are 33 "groups (arrays) of LEDs for each (tea producing) countries. There are a total of 179 LEDs (white and green) under micro-controller control. The lighting pattern is as the sun rises from East to West.
My customer was the display builder and the challenge was to create a lighting system with a controllable pattern. Durability was an issue and so was maintenance. We decided on screw-type automotive LEDs and I built a 12V micro controller with a 24 foot custom color-coded wiring harness. The controller was designed to be re-programmable as we had to build the map and light it before the customer saw it for approval. We knew the customer would want to tweak the pattern after seeing the unit. The lighting pattern tweaks were easily accomplished by changing the program flash chip.
If your project requires a complex lighted display like this one. Or any "one-off" engineering project, I can have it built and delivered. Please call or e-mail (info@gmkmg.com) for with your specifications and I will provide a quotation.
I said 12 foot x 6 foot. This is a big map. It is a single print
pulled on a large format ink jet.
Back of map (still in progress, tie wraps have not been cut) and controller box
attached to 24 feet of custom cable.
Completing the wiring harness. Attaching the sockets and testing.
This is what the unit looked like at the start, a box of wire. The workbench
at my customer's site.