I bet a bunch of us will be going to the LEDs Are Awesome meetup.
Tue 8/30 8 pm - 12
Illuminaughty
8:15 & G
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Oh, I hadn’t heard of it. Thanks for the info. I’m not working that night. I’ll try to remember to make it.
Awesome! My Hexadechacoron will be at the Alternative Energy Zone, 3:45 and E. Come bask in it’s pixelblaze awesomeness!
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That’s cool… what are you using as a diffuser?
This is AquaPEX tubing - 1" ID. I had to make custom 3D printed junctions to hold it ttogether
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oh hey neighbor! i gotta come over and see that hexadeachoron!!
my camp Backfire is gonna be right across the street from you (and AEZ) at 3:45 and F. i’m also using a pixelblaze in our new-for-2022 camp sign. i was up all night getting the letters assembled and bolted in place. now to build the box frame and stand… its about 8 feet across and nobody’s gonna miss it at night.
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I’ll be at 3 & B with camp Bao Chicka Wow Wow. Come see some of Wizard and ZRanger1’s handiwork on the Titanic’s End art car (polygon iceberg).
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Come see some of Wizard and ZRanger1’s handiwork on the Titanic’s End art car (polygon iceberg).
And, of course, an unbelievable amount of work over many, many months by @jeff on this massive project! Go see it in action if you can!
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I have a new, er, mobile water lily Art car that will be roaming around, running 6 PB’s. Green lily pad with a stalk and 14’ flower on top. All running off batteries, hopefully 
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I’ll be at 745& D at interrobang.
My art piece, starburst, will be somewhere on inner playa between 6 and 9.
Hope I can make meetup, but my wife arrives that afternoon
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FYI, I’ve been here since Monday and it’s been unusually warm both day and night. A severe dust storm with thunder (!) happened last night and blew down lots of stuff. Welcome to your vacation!
Looking forward to seeing what everyone brings this year! I’ll be floating around on a bike with 3 PBs driving my wheel and whip lighting, and you’ll probably recognize the standard PB patterns, so feel free to say hello. (I’m at that giant sound camp at 9 & G.)
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I rolled past your camp a few times in the evening. I’m in a pvc pedal car with leds inside of Pex tubing. It looked like you guys were really busy. It was during build week.
Would love to see some pics of everyones work when your all back 
Hi @timster did you custom-make those LED matrix modules that you are using? That’s a really awesome design!
thanks @PrismaticPhilo !
each “pixel” is a 4x4 led matrix. those can be ordered from aliexpress. but i had to design and build a jig that would let me lay out each letter with the correct spacing and hold the matrices very precisely in place while i soldered them together using header pins.
then it was a matter of designing the letter shells, determining the optimal distance from the LEDs to the transparent acrylic, etc. there’s a total of 2656 LEDs in the whole display. it was also a very happy concidence that the pro expander has eight ports which is exactly how many letters there are.
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Thanks for sharing more about your build! One of the hardest or at least most time-consuming parts of builds is soldering everything together. I might need to make a jig for some projects. it can be so hard to get things lined up perfectly. It turned out amazing and looks like it was well worth it.
Doing the math it looks like the modules you used are a little over 1.5" The LED modules look smaller than that. I found some 4x4 matrix aliexpress. I was actually thinking it might be something more like a 4x4 version of this. Which is such a small dense LED matrix. Adafruit DotStar High Density 8x8 Grid - 64 RGB LED Pixel Matrix : ID 3444 : $24.95 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits
Can I ask what Acrylic you used? I have used the diffusing kind before with ok results, but I probably needed more distance between it and the LEDs.
Those are really cool! Thanks for sharing!
The 4x4 matrix I used is basically like this one - 4x4 matrix, aliexpress although its about 50% more expensive now… i got them for $0.85 each. might be good to shop around, and pay attention to shipping costs.
the 4x4 panels measure 30mm square.
building a jig is essential. i had to iterate on the jig a few times to find one that worked. i originally tried 3D printing one but it wasn’t precise enough (flat enough) and required too much clean up, then i moved on to laser cutting a slab of delrin.
then you can see i am bridging the gaps with header pins. they’re exactly the right spacing and length. for corner turns and u-turns, i had to cut wire lengths. the input begins in the middle of the letter, and dont forget to add power injection. i found adding power injection with a heavier gauge cable at the last tile worked just fine.
this is the completed letter. so after screwing it upside down in the jig and soldering all the connections, it can receive a custom cut delrin sheet backing that holds everything in place, and as a bonus, serves as very solid protection of the wiring
lastly - i laser cut some 15% black diffuser acrylic and 3D printed the letter shells.
@hex337 - the LEDs are about 27mm from the bottom of the diffuser acrylic. that was the closest i could bring it without the individual LEDs beginning to resolve into their own spots.
At this point I was seriously running out of time to finish before leaving for the playa. So I hastily built the display case. I printed out the back of each letter’s jig as a drawing and taped them together to make a template where I could drill all the necessary holes for mounting them and running the wires through.
The backing sheet is a new material I’ve discovered, its called ACM aluminum composite material, which is two thin sheets of aluminum with a plastic composite core. (about 3mm thick) - it is basically the same material used in road signs! Its really super easy to cut and drill with power tools and its quite robust. you can pull the protective film off and get a very nice clean white surface.
And thats basically the build process. I was going to write up something to post on my website, but I still havent gotten around to it!
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