Supersizing the NeoPixel

It doesn’t really matter what you are making — whatever it is, slapping some WS2812B RGB LEDs on it will make it even better. These individually-addressable LEDs, better known as NeoPixels, are the ideal way to add a whole lot of beautiful blinkenlights to any DIY electronics project. But what if I were to tell you that there is something even better than a NeoPixel?

Believe it or not, it’s true. Arnov Sharma has created what he calls the Giant NeoPixel. It is the same NeoPixel we all know and love, only bigger — way bigger! The Giant NeoPixel measures 150×150 mm, making it exactly 30 times larger than a standard WS2812B RGB LED. Where a traditional NeoPixel can be used to illuminate a status light, the Giant NeoPixel can be used to light up an entire room.

To make this possible, Sharma began by recreating the 5050 WS2812B LED package in CAD. Using a top-view reference image imported into Fusion 360, he scaled the LED body to 150 mm and traced out the familiar square shape, the interior cavity, and the signature metal pads. A 98 mm central cavity was added to house the actual electronics, and aluminum sheet pieces were cut and shaped to form oversized VCC, GND, DIN, and DOUT terminals. The finished model was 3D printed in white PLA to mimic the look of the tiny epoxy packages we’ve all used before.

Inside that giant shell sits a custom circular PCB designed around the WS2811 LED driver IC. Unlike a normal WS2812B — which integrates the driver and RGB LED dies into a single 5050 package — this massive version uses nine discrete 5050 RGB LEDs arranged behind the lens. Each color channel is grouped in parallel, and because the WS2811 can’t directly supply the current needed for such high-output LEDs, Sharma added three 8205S dual N-channel MOSFETs as switching stages. These MOSFETs act as power amplifiers, letting the WS2811 control the LEDs while delivering far brighter output than the chip alone could ever provide.

Supporting components include gate resistors, current-limiting resistors on the LED anodes, and a four-pin connector that exposes VCC, GND, DIN, and DOUT, allowing multiple Giant NeoPixels to be daisy-chained just like their tiny counterparts. Assembly followed standard SMD practices: solder paste, tweezers, and a reflow hotplate to lock everything into place. After testing each LED with a multimeter, the finished PCB was mounted into the 3D-printed enclosure, wired to the oversized aluminum terminals, and finally encapsulated under a thick pour of clear epoxy.

Driven by a Seeed XIAO SAMD21 board and the FastLED library, the Giant NeoPixel behaves exactly like a standard LED, just on a much larger scale. Sharma says he hopes to build multiple units and eventually assemble a wall-sized RGB matrix. If this massive LED is any indication, that display is going to be impossible to miss.