WiFi LED Matrix Display
Posted: Sun Sep 29, 2019 8:27 pm
While volunteering at the 2019 BSide cyber security conference: https://bsidesperth.com.au/, I came across a cute 16 x 16 LED Matrix display. This used an ESP8266 to host a WiFi access point to display a webpage that allowed you to draw patterns that could be submitted to be displayed onto the matrix. It was fun watching a group of young 13 year olds trying to write Javascript and Python programs to control the display.
I realised I have one of these 16 x 16 LED matrix displays at home, so I set out this week to build my own display. Luckily I have designed and built my own ESP8266 LED PCB that included it's own 3.3V to 5V level translator built into it.
I had previously purchased a 16 x 16 flexible LED display from the LED building in Shenzhen, but here is a random one from AliExpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894654401.html Look around and see if you can get a better price as they fluctuate.
All I had to do for the housing was cut out a white 2mm thick acrylic to act as a diffuser a 3mm thick spacer and a back spacer. I then designed up a mounting bracket for my ESP8266 PCB board and a suitable stand for the display. These where 3D printed out. I even designed up and 3D printed out a small cable tie down for the USB power cable.
It's self supporting. I think the USB cable could perhaps be placed so that it's a bit better hidden, but I am expecting it to run from a power board USB socket, not from a battery power bank.
Power usage at 30% LED brightness is 3.6W, or around 0.7A at 5V. I have placed some ceramic and a tantalum capacitor on the back of the LED matrix and my board doesn't seem to bothered by the noisy 5V power.
Overall, I am happy with this quick project. Thanks to the crew (Blake?) at the Perth Artifactory for the software: https://github.com/Perth-Artifactory/ar ... raw-matrix and project idea. I plan on taking this to China next week with me as a roving art display. I am sure it will make a fun talking point and people will have fun playing with it. Hopeful maybe even some Python code might be written to control the display.
I realised I have one of these 16 x 16 LED matrix displays at home, so I set out this week to build my own display. Luckily I have designed and built my own ESP8266 LED PCB that included it's own 3.3V to 5V level translator built into it.
I had previously purchased a 16 x 16 flexible LED display from the LED building in Shenzhen, but here is a random one from AliExpress: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32894654401.html Look around and see if you can get a better price as they fluctuate.
All I had to do for the housing was cut out a white 2mm thick acrylic to act as a diffuser a 3mm thick spacer and a back spacer. I then designed up a mounting bracket for my ESP8266 PCB board and a suitable stand for the display. These where 3D printed out. I even designed up and 3D printed out a small cable tie down for the USB power cable.
It's self supporting. I think the USB cable could perhaps be placed so that it's a bit better hidden, but I am expecting it to run from a power board USB socket, not from a battery power bank.
Power usage at 30% LED brightness is 3.6W, or around 0.7A at 5V. I have placed some ceramic and a tantalum capacitor on the back of the LED matrix and my board doesn't seem to bothered by the noisy 5V power.
Overall, I am happy with this quick project. Thanks to the crew (Blake?) at the Perth Artifactory for the software: https://github.com/Perth-Artifactory/ar ... raw-matrix and project idea. I plan on taking this to China next week with me as a roving art display. I am sure it will make a fun talking point and people will have fun playing with it. Hopeful maybe even some Python code might be written to control the display.