DIY Digital Color Mixer for Artists | Interactive Paint Mixing Studio

Hello people, In this Instructables i will show you how i made this useful tool for artists and obviously hobbyists like me and you!

This is a portable color mixer that can mix any colors that you can imagine of, lets say you want to create a hue of colors instead of manually trying and wasting the colors you can mix here digitally and obtain the desired output.

It has a preloaded set of colors and also the custom colors which you can use

Mix any 2 colors and the result color is seen live on the display and on the RGB led strip on the device.

Since the display module can display any colors and also the WS2812B LED can display any colors this is very useful for the artists who work on colors a lot.

Here in the 8 LEDS, First 2 represent the first color that you are willing to mix, Next LED is turned off(blank to create a space)

4th and 5th LED on strip shows the second color, 6th LED is blank on the Strip again to create a gap.

The 7th and 8th LED shows the result of mixing colors.

You can see the live transition of colors on this strip when you are navigating through the color wheel.

To begin with let me quickly give you overview of the features that this project has

1. You can mix two colors to create realistic paint blends
2. Has 32 built-in artist paint colors
3. Interactive RGB color wheel mode
4. Real-time WS2812B LED color preview
5. Beautiful 240×240 circular TFT user interface
6. Single rotary encoder for easy navigation
7. Smooth animations and color transitions
8. Realistic paint mixing using predefined color rules
9. Instant preview of original and mixed colors
10. Displays color names and HEX color codes
11. Switch between Preset Palette and Color Wheel modes
12. Compact desktop tool for artists, students, and hobbyists

And many other yet to be explored features! I'm not a artist but after i built this i'm thinking to go for a painting class!

So that i can finally be able to fully utilize this device which i made or atleast probably show off to my fellow mates at the arts class!

This is portable and fits any pocket also you can power this with USB power source and with a single module all the navigation modes are possible.

These are the supplies that you will need to build this color mixer project

Wemos D1 Mini from amazon

Jumper Cables

LED Strip WS2812B

Rotary Encoder

Round Display (GC9A01 240x240)

3D Printer

PLA Filament

Arduino IDE

Programming Cable

Super Glue

Hot Glue

These are affiliate links and upon qualifying sales i will receive a small percent of sales at no extra cost to you

The circuit is simple here and it is not complex as seen in the circuit diagram.

I will split the circuit component wise and explain the connections one by one so that you can follow with ease.

GC9A01 or the 240x240 LCD display module connections

CS pin from the LCD is connected to D8 on wemos board

DC is connected to D2 pin

RST pin from LCD connected to D1 on board

SDA or in some board MOSI is connected to D7 pin

SCK to D5

The power pins Vcc and Gnd is connected to 3.3v and the ground on the wemos board

Rotary Encoder connections

This has 5 pins and all are used here in this project

Clk is connected to D3

DT From Encoder is connected D4

SW pin is connected to the TX pin on the wemos board

Power pins are connected to the respective pins on board

WS2812B Strip or the ARGB strip connections

Vcc and the ground pins from strip is connected to 3v and the ground pins on the controller board

DIN or the signal pin is connected to D6 pin of wemos board

Use this program in your wemos board, Make sure to check if the libraries are installed before you upload the program.

After you upload the program test the circuit by navigating through the menus using the encoder

While navigating through colors the same colors should be shown in the LED strip and now you can verify that the circuit is working fine.

Now we can head over to casing the components inside the 3d printed case.

I made the enclosure for this project using the 3D printed parts, and for the parts design i will be using the Tinkercad application.

There are 6 parts in total out of which most of them i chose to print individually since my printer can print only one color at once.

You can simply use the STL files which i have given below to print the models, Just import to any slicer software i will be using the cura.

There is no need to use any rafts or supports at the time of printing since there is no hanging parts we are using here.

It wont take much time to print the parts since all of them are small small parts and can be printed quickly.

For the enclosure, You can decide to go with JUSTWAY3D Print service — and honestly, it will be one of the easier way to get enclosure for this project.

Getting a case to actually feel finished is harder than it sounds. If you want clean edges, the right material strength, so that your electronics sit exactly where they should.

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Then Upload your file and select material + finish options, Pick layer resolution and infill rate, then can review the design and place order

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Check their all of capabilities above and choose the service that you wish.

If you are confused as which colors to be used, simply follow the color combination which im using and to be honest my color combinations looks good.

I suggest to use only white color on the strip part since the part for that place is used a light diffuser to even spread the light colors from the strip.

After the print is over you should have the parts like as shown in these steps.

Be careful while working with the rings part since they are fragile and may break if you handle it too harshly.

The choice of knob on the encoder head is left to you, i chose the simple design that works really well for this project.

I will start by inserting the wemos board first to see if the pins fit to the slot in the 3d printed base part.

It will fit well without any doubt, Now you can use double sided adhesive or the hot glue to stick this firmly to the base.

Then work on the LCD part, Here you can use tiny amount of hot glue to attach this round display to the 3d printed frame.

LED strip that im using has hard base and you can use hot glue to place this module in the slot provided on the frame.

Just add another layer of hot glue on the LCD part and this LED strip part to make sure everything remains intact.

After this is dry, insert all the jumper cables inside the frame and keep the encoder on the top.

Add the lid and then using super glue seal the joints, Press and hold for few seconds to have a good sealing.

To make the encoder highlight i use a small square shape part that helps to have a good adhesion between the lid and the encoder body.

You can add super glue here because it makes the work look neat.

There are 4 parts that we will be using to finish this project, i will start by adding the glue on the rings that will be added to the LCD area.

I chose blue color here since the background colors is white in the other way round you can use red color here too.

The 3d printed part that i chose to fit on the knob on the encoder had some visible extra space between the top lid and the encoder knob, So i added another small ring here so that the space looked filled.

Now just add the encoder knob and now we can add the diffuser part on the frame part.

Use tiny amount of super glue here and make sure there is no stains on this part since it may affect the color output from the LED strip.

If needed add second layer of glue to the lid part to have a good adhesion between the parts.

The project is complete and the most exciting part is testing and we will be doing that in the next step and see how this project performs.

Using this Color Mixer is simple simply power on the device by connecting to USB source and the main menu will appear on the display.

Rotate the encoder to choose between Preset Palette Mode and Color Wheel Mode, then press the encoder center button to select.

In Preset Palette Mode, rotate the encoder to browse through 32 built-in artist colors. Press the encoder to switch between Slot A and Slot B, allowing you to select two different colors. The device instantly calculates and displays the resulting mixed color along with its name and HEX code, while the RGB LEDs provide a live preview.

Here is the list of preset colors!

White, Ivory, Cream, Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Sienna, Burnt Sienna, Scarlet, Cadmium Red, Crimson, Rose, Magenta, Violet, Purple, Indigo, Ultramarine, Cobalt Blue, Cerulean, Sky Blue, Cyan, Emerald, Viridian, Sap Green, Olive, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber, Brown, Warm Gray, Cool Gray, Ivory Black, Mars Black

In Color Wheel Mode, rotate the encoder to freely choose any hue from the color wheel. Just like in Preset Mode, you can switch between the two color slots with a button press and instantly see the blended result.

To return to the main menu at any time or to go to the previous menu, simply press and hold the encoder button(center button)

The real-time LED feedback make experimenting with color combinations very easy.

You can see the live colors on the RGB strip also, i have experimented mixing different colors and you can see that in this video.

Don't miss to check the colors mixing part on the video and tell me which color did you like the most.

This was all about this project, If you have any questions ask me in the comments and i will be happy to answer those! Thank you