Engineered Lighting · Engineering notebook
Building the robotic spotlight¶
We're building the robotic spotlight for the Engineered Lighting fixture: a silent pan/tilt head (smart CAN servo motors, absolute encoders, no homing dance) carrying a high-CRI 3-up LED spot, living alongside the fixture's tunable-white ambient zones, exposed to Home Assistant as ordinary entities and aimed autonomously by a camera-driven perception stack — following people, lighting task surfaces and books, pointing at art when idle, never sweeping across eyes.
This seven-document series takes it from research through a working bench prototype to the system architecture, with everything adversarially reviewed and every purchase specified.
What we're building toward¶
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The silent robotic spotlight
A pan/tilt head you can't hear: smart CAN actuators, absolute encoders, a balanced high-CRI LED payload — researched, chosen, and bench-built step by step.
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The aiming intelligence
Cameras, ground-plane tracking, and beam self-calibration that follow people, light task surfaces, and never sweep across eyes.
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The system architecture
The message contract every component obeys, and the software stack that runs it — testable without a living room.
Buying parts?¶
Everything the series tells you to buy, in one interactive list — check items off as you order, progress and totals persist in your browser.
The document map¶
| # | Doc | What it is | You buy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How We Got Here | Round-1 research digest: the physics, vocabulary, and five lessons under every later decision. Archive — read for understanding | nothing |
| 2 | Choosing the Motors | The decision journey to the RMD-L-4005 smart CAN actuators — what was evaluated, why integrated actuators won | (decision feeds Doc 3) |
| 3 | Build the Gimbal | 10-stage bench build: motors answering on CAN by stage 4, a balanced aimed head by stage 8. Full BoM, wiring, code, AI-partner workflow | ~$185–290 |
| 4 | Build the Full Fixture Bench | One ESP32-C6 running the whole fixture: 21 tunable-white channels + CC spotlight + gimbal, in ESPHome/Home Assistant | ~$170–240 |
| 5 | Teach It to Aim | The perception stack: cameras, ground-plane tracking, beam self-calibration, coordination, safety, user stories, phased roadmap (Phase 0 = a weekend) | ~$120–320 per room |
| 6 | The Message Contract | The one page every component obeys: topics, schemas, units, watchdogs, and the dual-control architecture (HA entities + autonomy without fights). When docs disagree, Doc 6 wins | nothing |
| 7 | Building the Software | The code: pinned stack, repo layout, hardware-free testing (replay cameras, simulated fixtures), deployment, firmware growth path, licensing gates | nothing |
Total prototype budget, all hardware: roughly $475–850 for one room end-to-end · Current phase: parts ordering / bench build