AI Anatomy · builds

Portable Pi 5 photo booth with status lights

Raspberry Pi gadget (photo booth), not a cyberdeck

A Raspberry Pi 5 in a handheld purple box with a strap: it takes photos, shows them on a small screen, and an RGBW LED strip shows what the booth is doing.

  • Maker D.D. (Instagram)
  • Video instagram.com
  • Files No files published
  • Licence No files or code published (checked 14 Oct 2026). Only the reel.
  • Maker's status Prototype 2. The LEDs are now synced to the booth.
  • Difficulty beginner to intermediate — No soldering visible: the strip plugs onto the GPIO pins. The hard parts are the Pi 5 LED driver and powering 146 LEDs.
  • 7 parts
  • ·
  • 4 lessons
  • ·
  • dissected 2026-10-14 by hardware

Parts at a glance, grouped by job. Dashed boxes hold a part that is not in the catalogue yet. A simple map, not a drawing of the build.

Parts

01

Every part the build uses, grouped by its job. Each one links to where the fact came from.

Brains1

  1. Raspberry Pi 5 with the Active Cooler

    Seen in the reel at 0:10.

    In the catalogue: Boards · Raspberry Pi 5 (1/2/4/8/16GB) ↗

    Source: instagram.com

Screen1

  1. Elecrow 5-inch HDMI touch display (800 x 480)

    The board in the reel reads 'Elecrow ... 5inch LCD Display'. Exact model not readable. Elecrow's RC050 draws 0.3 A at 5 V.

    In the catalogue: Screens · Small HDMI touch panel, 5" (e.g. Waveshare 5" HDMI LCD (B)) ↗

    Source: instagram.com · elecrow.com

Camera1

  1. Camera module on the Pi's ribbon connector (model not shown) not in the catalogue yet

    An orange ribbon cable runs from the Pi to a small green board. It is most likely a Pi camera module, but the reel doesn't name it.

    Source: instagram.com

Lights1

  1. SK6812 RGBW addressable LED strip, 146 LEDs not in the catalogue yet

    Her code sets count 146, 4 bytes per LED, colour order GRBW. That is an RGBW strip.

    Source: instagram.com

LED driver1

  1. Adafruit neopixel library (board + neopixel imports) not in the catalogue yet

    On a Pi 5 the old Pi 4 LED method doesn't work, because the Pi 5's new input/output chip (RP1) changed it. Adafruit's Pi 5 driver (Adafruit-Blinka-Raspberry-Pi5-Neopixel) works on any pin. The older SPI method only works on GPIO10.

    Source: learn.adafruit.com · pypi.org

Wiring1

  1. Strip data on GPIO10 (pin 19), ground on pin 20; she plans to move data to GPIO22 (pin 15)

    Her pin map, made with Claude, marks 'DIN NOW' at pin 19 and 'MOVE DIN HERE' at pin 15. Moving off GPIO10 frees the SPI port.

    In the catalogue: Cases, tools & designs · GPIO jumper wires (Dupont) ↗

    Source: instagram.com

Case1

  1. Handheld box with a carry strap, LEDs around the screen not in the catalogue yet

    Material not stated. A box like this is easy to print on the X2D.

    Source: instagram.com

Power check

02

Watch out. The Pi is fine. The LED strip must not run from the Pi's 5 V pin at full brightness.

  • An RGBW NeoPixel can draw up to about 80 mA at full white (Adafruit).
  • 146 LEDs x 80 mA = 11.7 A worst case. No Pi supply gives that.
  • Her colours are mostly one channel and dim (capture green is 0,200,0), so real draw is about a third of that or less. But one 'all white' bug would still pull several amps.
  • The Pi 5 itself wants 5 V at 5 A, and the screen adds 0.3 A.

The fix Feed the strip from its own 5 V supply, with its ground tied to the Pi's ground, and cap the brightness in code. The reel doesn't show how her strip is powered.

Sources: learn.adafruit.com · learn.adafruit.com · pip-assets.raspberrypi.com

Lessons

03

What this build teaches. Each lesson opens the video at the moment it comes from.

  1. Give each state its own light: green flashing while it takes the photo, purple sparkle while it prints, a slow colour cycle when idle. People can read the machine from across the room.

    Watch at 0:07

  2. Write the code so it still runs without the hardware. Her led.py falls back to a simulator when the LED library is missing, so she can test on a laptop.

    Watch at 0:07

  3. Ask an AI for a pin map, then check it against the official Pi pinout before you plug in. Hers marks 3V3 (pin 17) as 'not a GPIO', which is the kind of thing to check.

    Watch at 0:08

  4. Plug-on jumper wires to the GPIO header mean no soldering for a first version.

    Watch at 0:10

How to make it

04

A route to your own version. These steps are hardware's plan, built from the sourced parts and power check above.

Decide

  1. 01

    What the booth does at each step (idle, countdown, capture, print), and one light pattern per step.

Buy

  1. 02

    Raspberry Pi 5 and its 27 W supply, a Pi camera module, a 5-inch HDMI touch screen, an SK6812 RGBW strip (cut to length), a separate 5 V supply for the strip, jumper wires. Add a printer only if you want paper copies (her printer model is not shown).

Wire

  1. 03

    Strip data to a GPIO pin (GPIO10 works with the SPI method; any pin with Adafruit's Pi 5 driver), strip ground to a Pi ground pin, strip 5 V to its own supply.

Code

  1. 04

    Install Adafruit-Blinka-Raspberry-Pi5-Neopixel in a Python virtual environment. Set the count to your LED count and the colour order to GRBW for SK6812 RGBW. Test one colour, then add the booth states.

Case

  1. 05

    Design a box around the screen and the camera hole, with a channel for the strip and a strap mount. I can design and print it on the X2D.

Printer notes and open questions

05

Printer (X2D)

Nothing published to print. A case for a 5-inch screen (121 x 95 mm) fits the X2D bed easily. Print a diffuser lip for the LED strip in translucent PETG.

Still open

  • Camera model and printer model: not shown in the reel.
  • How the strip is powered: not shown.

These are hardware's own notes, not sourced facts.