Mole Beacon

For our Warnemünde section, which includes a water area, we also need a lighthouse so that our ships can travel safely.

Since Warnemünde has two Mole Beacons (one green and one red), I decided to recreate the green beacon light. I did some research and found some good reference images for this project.

Github Action:

First, I replicated the building in OnShape. This was not as easy as I initially thought, but in the end, I was successful.

The more interesting part was the electronics. I used an ESP32 as the controller and decided to connect it to the System Control with my generic BLE system. Then, I tested if I could replicate the beacon signal (2 seconds on and 2 seconds off). It was the first time I had used hardware timers and interrupts for the LEDs. The beacon's LED will illuminate transparent PLA, making the light visible.

A more challenging part will be the outdoor lights, as the building has two of them. I will try to use 0402 3V LEDs and hope that I can print a miniature enclosure to mimic the real lamps.

The custom PCBs are created within KiCad.

This is the LED board, with is located a the top within the building. Is has connections to the WS2812B RGB LED and the two outdoor 0402 LEDs, which are within separate housings.

But the LED board can't work without any controller. Here it is.