Wooden Headphone Stand with LED Edge Lighting

Plywood – wood formed from thin strips – is something we generally take for granted as a useful building material. However, as Zach of All Trades points out in the video below, the same concept can (theoretically) be used with other materials as well.

To test this out, he made a curving headphone stand, with a single layer of acrylic sandwiched between two layers of maple on either side. The acrylic acts as a light pipe for internal LEDs, lighting up the edge based on capacitive touch inputs. The result is a fantastic fusion of wood and tech that took a huge amount of effort to get working correctly.

Embedded inside the acrylic layer, a series of flexible PCBs with PY32 microcontrollers drive the internal LEDs, and respond to capacitive touch sensing via copper tape. These PCBs, in turn, are connected to an STMicroelectronics Nucleo-32 in the base for overall control and power supply. The effect of the LEDs shining through the acrylic as edge lighting is impressive, and it holds a set of headphones nicely, though Zach sees some room for improvement.

While he’s not crazy about the color or sheen of the finish – and there was a decent amount of gap filling with epoxy – he did learn a ton during the process, such as vacuum laminating and working with capacitive touch sensing. Of course, one might argue that learning is the point with any project like this, and if he makes another iteration, it should be even better.

Check it out in action, and Zach’s struggles to get it finished, in the video below!