It’s always great when we get a chance to follow up on a previous project with more information, or further developments. So we’re happy that [“Ancient” James Brown] just dropped a new video showing the assembly of his Lego brick with a tiny OLED screen inside it. The readers are too, apparently — we got at least half a dozen tips on this one.
We’ve got to admit that this one’s a real treat, with a host of interesting skills on display. Our previous coverage on these bedazzled bricks was disappointingly thin on details, and now the original tweets even seem to have disappeared entirely. In case you didn’t catch the original post, [James] found a way to embed a microcontroller and a remarkably small OLED screen into a Lego-compatible brick — technically a “slope 45 2×2, #3039” — that does a great job of standing in for a tiny computer monitor.
The present video shares a lot more detail on this fancy brick. The core of the circuit is four tiny scraps of PCB, hosting the RP2040 microcontroller and necessary support components. [James] used a series of 3D-printed jigs to hold the boards while soldering, which results in a compact package to fit inside the sloped brick. After attaching the diminutive OLED and doing a little testing, the circuit origami is placed into one half of a two-piece silicone mold. Translucent plastic resin is mixed up and added to the mold, which flows around the circuit to complete the build.
The results are amazing — a brick that looks like a stock Lego part, at least until it’s plugged into a powered baseplate. The way the screen is molded right into the resin and shines right through it is enchanting, and the texture on the face of the slope looks fantastic. We’re mightily impressed by the craftsmanship here, and we’re very glad [James] shared the details of his process. Now if we could only get build files…
Thanks to [Footleg], [DKE], and a bunch of other people for this tip!
Does it run Doom ? ;-)
Someone’s run Doom on an RP2040. It was over VGA rather than I2C/SPI, but I can’t imagine that would be a showstopper. It also requires a solid overclock and a 2M 135MHz flash chip, no idea what flash this board has. The overclock also might require a change to the XTAL.
https://hackaday.com/2022/03/15/doom-comes-to-the-rp2040/
It does! https://youtu.be/TJHSMpYi8bg
Yes. Yes, it does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3i5_vLq8qA
what a time to be alive
Cheater
doom, on a lego. now ive seen everything. i can die happy.
It can’t be real….. pinch me !!!
oh wait, no, it hurts.
But still…
Looks like James is also on Mastodon and has posted about this project there: https://mastodon.social/@ancientjames/109548030131296146
Mastodon is the future and needs to be boosted to deprive Musk of influence. He threatens all our freedoms but intersectional individuals most of all.
No ‘miroblogging’ website is the future. SNR is too low, fundamental design paradigm is opposed to information retrievability.
That’s a bit much.
Thanks! followed
You != Everyone
Wow. My childhood fantasies come true. The little capacitive touch sensors molded into the studs are clever.
That is really damn impressive. All those excellent little jigs for each stage.
I wonder how well it will last, between the generally less elastic more brittle epoxy running out of clutch power on the battery box or cracking, and the OLED that won’t last forever. The thing is very effectively potted so going to be rather hard to repair in the end. Still really damn cool, and if its not running too hot on the OLED I expect it will last well enough.
Yeah. You know your build process has tiny tolerances when you need production tooling just to build your prototypes.
On the OLED, at Ultimaker we had multiple OLED screens that where on 24/7 for years, full brightness, and they only showed a slightly more dim pixels then new screens. While they might not last forever, they last a long time.
That seems to depend a great deal on how hard they are driven, I expect to get over being a little buried in the resin casting part this OLED may need to be driven a little on hard side to shine through well enough… Do think they will last well enough myself, but it is likely the limiting factor for its lifetime.
That is brilliant. Fantastic job and not a hammer or a blowlamp in sight.
That’s definitely a product with a market for it…
Those are some serious skills.
My only question is, why?
Rule of cool
This is fantastic!
Impressive! Thanks for the video, I love it. Please start a store :)
Why has no one mentioned using the lego separator to get the brick out of the mold? That was a nice touch :)
Or the axels in the mold to align top and bottom :D
That’s an Uffington White Horse! :D
I love the idea of 3d printed jigs to help with soldering things on (the screen in particular). Might need to steal that
That is absolutely exquisite! The use of all the jigs and everything really elevates it. It almost feels demeaning to call something this polished a ‘hack’. 😌
Amaizing. Now I have more work to do to build Lego Bricks for the Grandkids.
This is possibly the greatest ‘hack’ I’ve ever seen on HAD.
It literally ticks so many boxes and pulls so many disciplines together in one great hack.
10/10
Shut up and take my money!
Cease and desist from legocorp in 3…2…
if you blow the firmware on a lego brick does that mean you are bricking a brick? 🤔
Holy shit. The engineering on this. Mwah!
Any idea where to get the pcb board with the RP2040 microcontroller shown in the video? It would be just right for testing an idea of mine.