Well, a lot has happened since the first article here — the LED cube made from NeoMatrix panels.
Below, how it looks with the plexiglas plates affixed to each side, using 25mm M3 bolts, which give it a strangely tactile nature, with hints of satellite about them; they also act as stands, allowing light from the normally hidden underside to be seen as projection.
I’ve experimented with various types and materials for the M3 bolts and nuts — white nylon, black steel M3 half-nuts, self-coloured silver high tensile stainless steel, anodised black. They all have their appeal, although I find the stainless steel and the black most interesting.
I’d spent a great deal of time looking for a system that would allow me to construct the cube with the high production values and structural aesthetic I was looking for. Enter Makerbeam…
MakerBeam - Think Build Enjoy - sales and production of small aluminum profiles and related hardware. This system allowed me to build a solid prototype, easy to put together — and more importantly to take apart.
To be honest, I could have made these cubes long ago — I had been writing code for the six panels for a good while. I could have used a hot-glue gun and bits of wood. But that would not have felt right — even if no-one could see the insides of the objects — I would know. And a construction like that would have been messy and difficult to modify.
Makerbeam Anodised Aluminium T-Slot Extrusion.The first cube used black 10mm x 10mm beams — 40mm beams were used as edges connector, giving the cube a solid framework. It works well.
I’ve now replaced the T-Slot Beams with MakerBeam Corner Cubes:
These give almost the same structural strength, but are much lighter, and allow much more space inside the cube for wiring, power distribution, the battery and the microcontroller — the Bluefruit 32u4 Feather from Adafruit. The board has a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) chip from Nordic — to allow control of the cube via smartphone.
To make sure each panel has the a continuous voltage and current, I’ve built a small power distribution board. Simply a small piece of Perfboard, soldered to the the 5V 10A power supply, and distributed evenly across all six NeoMatrix panels. To ensure no short circuits or other problems, I decided to encase it in his handy package — originally meant to hold Nintendo DS cartridges. Many thanks to Jeremy for his help here.
I used M3 white nylon, M3 High Tensile Steel bolts to hold the cube, panels and Plexiglas together. I like the way the white Nylon bolts catch the color of the LEDS, but prefer the look of the steel bolts. They not only hold the structure together, but act as stands for the cube. It allows the Plexiglas to reflect the colours from the LED panels, and gives a fuller, shinier look.
Using the wonder BlueFruit Feather 32u4 from Adafruit, I am now experimenting with code to allow basic control of the cubes functions — turn on and off, choose and change colour and brightness, choose from a number of pixel animations.
Comments