[100uf] built an LED matrix shield for the MSP430 launchpad. His goal with this design was to have it play Conway’s Game of Life. It does just that, as you can see in the clip after the break. But it’s just waiting to learn some more tricks. After he tires of watching the cellular automaton he can try his hand at making some LED pendant animations.
As you can tell, the board was made in his home workshop. It’s not etched, but milled using the CNC machine shown in this image gallery. This is a single-sided PCB, which works well enough for the surface mount components and the downward facing pin sockets. But we wonder how difficult it was to solder the legs of that 8×8 LED matrix. It does have plastic feet at each corner that serve as standoffs to separate the body from the copper layer. But it still looks like a tight space into which he needed to get his iron and some solder.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpaEVw45fBY
[via Reddit]
Pretty neat, he should sell some in the 43oh shop. I’d buy one assembled. I dressed up as “when life hands you lemons” for Halloween and I told my wife I could do something like this with leds and wear it t represent life but she said it would be too hard to explain to people. I apparently need to hang out with more tinkerers
Stellar! Want one of my own.