Aluminum LED Matrix Looks Professionally Made

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[David Donley] has wanted to make a LED matrix for a while now, and has decided to finally pull the trigger — after all, that many LEDs certainly aren’t cheap!

He’s using a set of 16 Adafruit 8×8 NeoPixel LED Matrices (almost $600 worth of LEDs) and a BeagleBone Black to control them. To mount the LED matrices he bought a sheet of 6061-T6 aluminum for two purposes — one to act as a giant heatsink, and two, to look cool. All he had to do was drill some holes in the sheet for the connectors, and then use 3M 300LSE double-sided adhesive to stick the NeoPixels to the surface. The result is a border-less display that looks clean and professional.

To power the array he’s using a 5V 90A power supply — at full brightness these LEDs can consume around 325W, or 65A at 5V!  Taking notes from the opensource LEDscape code on GitHub he’s made his own software to control the display — stick around after the break to see it in action.

A cheaper version (albeit, not full color) can be had using Chinese LED arrays for a fraction of the price — 96 x 48 resolution!

13 thoughts on “Aluminum LED Matrix Looks Professionally Made

  1. When the price is >>> the price of a TFT/OLED monitor, just buy one of those and put it behind a shadow mask. Faster, smoother, more colourful, easier to drive.

    Honestly, with this budget you could scrounge up enough used monitors + raspberry Pi’s to build a frickin’ video wall.

  2. Yeah, for the cost, you have to ask WHY?

    Gotta imagine there’s a lot of ABR (after build remorse), because there really isn’t much use for a $600+++ LED Matrix (no matter how shiny the mounting board is).

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