Making oddly satisfying LED magnet tiles

[@bitluni]

oops, project set to public on github now 😅

[@AnotherByteData]

Kudos for using Blender!!! ;-)

[@lynxxlynxx]

Oops 😄💕

[@ISquishWorms]

I am considering having a go at this project but the Ali Express link to the magnet connectors is not working for me. I am from the UK not sure of that makes any difference? Oh and maybe a "Merry Christmas" LED pattern would be good if that is possible as soon it will be Christmas time. Edit: I found the magnet connectors my ad-blocker was not allowing the link to work.

[@GrimsGhostG59]

Dude. If u make this in to a large scale productions it would be a game changer for house decor

[@NegativeROG]

Holidays would never be the same, and with an insane amount of epoxy or hot glue, an IPS68 rating should be attainable. This is my next project.

[@75Krusty]

I have also been thinking about how it would be in the future. You could have eg. something like nano-particles in paint. And paint your walls with that. Then connect the wall to a box with IC, receiver etc. inside. And you can send from mobile, tablet, laptop, or PC any photo or video to your walls. So each wall would be like a big LCD monitor. Having musicvideos or just some cozy dolphins swimming around...

[@-allornothing-]

@@75Krusty you could use graphite to mix with the paint. But great idea

[@4st4ri]

@@75Krusty this is a fire idea

[@MinePossu]

​@@75Krusty it would probably be much easier to sell rolls of wall paper with integrated led matrix.

[@msmith2961]

Soldering the magnetic connectors was hilarious 😂😂

[@ivanj46]

Using liquid solder would free up one hand so he could keep the tip from getting pulled by the magnet. Using a heat gun with the liquid solder can help him solder away from the magnets entirely. Better yet, liquid solder could help him soldering 256 leads at once with a modified oven.

[@zwerko]

@@ivanj46 Some of those magnetic connectors are made out of PBT and will happily melt at a mere sight of a hot air station, let alone attempting to solder their pins with it... Don't ask me how I know 🫣

[@andrewtr001]

@@zwerko yuuuuuuuup. The unfortunate scenario of "The right tool for the job is also deadly to the part."

[@derekthemagician]

the pain is real.

[@DanieleGiorgino]

I want you to know that leds dying to current spikes is something even professional led fixture manufacturers deal with.

[@DiaconescuAlexandru2024]

Could be fixed by a linear voltage regulator or even a current multiplier in series with the PSU. Although for this you'd obviously need 2-3V of headroom

[@JohnSmith-iu8cj]

And have less efficiency

[@artisticyeti22]

​@@DiaconescuAlexandru2024 can you elaborate on this further? I didn't understand but I'm interested

[@DiaconescuAlexandru2024]

@@JohnSmith-iu8cj While it is true that the efficiency would be lowered due to a linear regulator, how much depends on the headroom and required stable voltage at the output. In addition, it's better for your circuit to be a bit less efficient than to burn out. LED's are not that power hungry, so we're not talking about dozens of wasted watts here.

[@DiaconescuAlexandru2024]

​@@artisticyeti22 at 00:46 you can see some pretty big ringing. By using a linear regulator between the LED's and power supply you can mostly eliminate this ringing, due to the linear regulator behaving like a variable resistor which changes it's resistance as to keep a constant voltage on the LED circuitry. But for this to work, the PSU needs to output a 3-4V more than the LED's need so the linear regulator has enough headroom. So if your LED's are supplied from 5V, you'd need atleast 8-9V from the PSU so that the linear regulator can do it's job and regulate the voltage. An even easier option is a current multiplier, although it's not a stable power supply, it does also prevent huge spikes and noise by acting as a very large capacitor placed between the PSU and LED's, although typically you'll get a voltage drop of 0,8-1,4V between the PSU and LED's.

[@1kreature]

I did a similar project about 18 years ago and I implemented the water-ripple simulation. I think you should do that with the tiles! It would look fantastic when a ripple can propagate from a single "randomly excited pixel" on one of the tiles and spread as a water-ripple to the other tiles. The choice of reflection, inversion or something else at borders offer some fun variations as well.

[@DastardDek]

Add this with a diffuser, to a surface that has a touch input and that would be neat

[@Einxeld]

Also think about fluid simulation with different shapes of the container made of these led panels

[@zaks7]

go one step further and simulate game of life on these :)

[@JemEklery]

I can imagine some 2D platformer game on these, where you have to move LED segments to discover more world :D

[@donsknots6510]

Omg. Pay per led. 😢

[@Ohverture]

@@donsknots6510 DownLEDable content.

[@Tarou9000]

gotta love having two pixels as the character for the player

[@jhigger]

pay to win hahaha

[@drewcipher896]

There used to be a toy like that. They were packaged as cubes.

[@hannesknofel8408]

I would love to see you continue on the code for the latest led-project!

[@UnexpectedMaker]

That's a wicked result - where can I order a bunch (or lunch) of them? :)

[@Maxjoker98]

Mmmhh... LEDs! It's lunch time! ;)

[@PrinceShehzad]

I don't think they are edible, but you can try a bunch of them.

[@LogicalDraws]

They BRIGHT up my day when i eat them! ​@@Maxjoker98

[@sp-vt4je]

Lunch? How about breakfast?

[@TexusNoe365247]

@@sp-vt4jeBreakfast? What about second breakfast?

[@crmsn_]

Oh mannn I want to build a giant managerie of these and hook it up to a retro pi build. Love the idea of hex tiles too. Looking forward to seeing further progress with this. Cheers!

[@marcus.makes3d]

Hey just wanted to let you know that the free user limit on fusion can be fixed by just changing you old models and designs to Read-Only. Keep up the great work! Love the project btw

[@jasonfyk]

I dont know if it helps, but there are copper tips for the soldering iron that you can buy even at AliX, this will make soldering magnetic parts much easier PS: for those who are beginners with soldering, the tips are removable and generally held in place with just a screw, even if you dont solder magnetic parts, its good to have copper tips as they are better thermal conductors

[@MichelSatoer]

Free Fusion has a limit of 10 active "editable" projects. But you can have a many projects as you wish if you make the previous projects "Read-only". (See the sidebar with "My editable documents"). If you need to edit a read-only project, just make ik editable again. Just make sure you respect the max of 10 editable projects at the same time.

[@Ahadun]

thanks for da tip

[@sirseriously]

Also - you can usually pay about $10 to get added to a school/company license to get access to everything, if you know a guy...or have eBay.

[@martinslade6741]

​@sirseriously wait for real? I'm a hobbiest and I'd happy pay $20 a month but not $700+ a year!

[@makers_lab]

@@martinslade6741 which is why you use the free version, which is free for non commercial use and fully functional with no meaningful limitations for almost any type of non-commercial project. For commercial use, $700 a year isn't a big deal.

[@ClangandChiill]

@@sirseriously Idk if they still have it, but for a long time all you had to do was email autodesk and register as a business with less than 100k profit annually and they'd give you a startup license for free.

[@vonries]

I haven't worked with electronics in quite some time. It is nice to visit the old community and see things are going well. You always do such cool work. Keep it up and good luck to you.

[@mdrvid]

I love that you share your 'mistakes'. Makes me feel less alone when I make them ^^

[@axfreede]

Hi Bitluni, The link of the magnet connectors leads to the LEDs. Can you fix the link? Thx! Awsome work.

[@bitluni]

link fixed. thx for the hint

[@D1zZit]

@@bitluni can you also fix the github link for the project? Also broken

[@edgelord3428]

@@bitluni it says they are unavailable now

[@ZomB1986]

The link is truncated because it's too long. (see the ellipsis on the end). KZbin being KZbin only puts the real URL in the text, and the href contains an evil tracker link (bait&switch style). The real URL ends in "magnetConnectors", however it seems to lead only to through-hole connectors. Do you also have the link for the SMD connectors from your last video?

[@jhsevs]

suggestion for next challenge: make it in a hexagonal matrix instead :D

[@bartolomeothesatyr]

Hard concur, hexagonal matrices are the bestagonal matrices!

[@nubiwiththebull]

Also other different shapes that can be combined to the same format, triangles as well

[@meach8551]

The most successful people embrace failure. Much respect. I wish others did the same.

[@АлексейГорький-в8е]

You can use a heat gun with solder paste, to solder magnets. Another way around this problem is to close magnet field on one side with metal, this will significantly reduce the strength of the magnetic field on the other side

[@weisland2807]

this is the sort of thing i would realize near the end of the project for sure!

[@eDoc2020]

Magnets are heat sensitive. If you solder them with a heat gun you might be left with some non-magnets.

[@raphanunu6912]

@@eDoc2020 They recover when getting cold again, normally...

[@SegFaultOnLine1984]

@@raphanunu6912uh what

[@raphanunu6912]

@@SegFaultOnLine1984 Magnets, when getting cold they recover the power they loose with heat

[@showxating9885]

I love those chonky LEDs. Very nice. I was instantly drawn when two of my favorite things, LEDs and magnets, were the stars of your show. Bravo. I love it, but it's too intimidating as a project for me currently. It's hands down more attractive than any other wall project I've seen thus far.

[@bertkoerts3991]

Very motivating. I’m not in a position to support you financially, but know that your sharing and enthusiasm and creativity help me a lot! Thank you! 😊👍🇳🇱

[@backgammonbacon]

Excellent work, 5 iterations is pretty good. You need a buddy to remind you to check if your pads are upside down/mirrored or not.

[@montazvideo]

I don't know if it's feasible or not, because of potential size problems, but these leds look like they might just slide in some 4pin sockets soldered to the board instead of soldering leds directly. (?) It might solve your replacement issue.

[@abp42k]

If you think you could make them hex shape, you could make a catan board where the lights represent the resources of the tile and maybe even have the dice number displayed. You'd would need to 3d print spaces for the towns and roads to sit between tiles.

[@johnacsyen]

The magnetic connector link to AliExpress links to the rgb led

[@toniog0462]

If you wanna get around the soldering of the leds I recommend either make the the box bigger to hide the legs of the leds. If that doesn't work it may be best make little holes in the box where you can fit in the Led-legs. It may be a little annoying, but if you get the box size right you can just slot in the Platine and the box will prevent the legs from touching anything problematic

[@ergindemir7366]

Those cells consume up to 2A each, in your case it's unnecessarily dense. If you want to chain them properly you should go for the 12V version of the nenopixel.

[@FilamentFriday]

If I understand correctly, you put a resistor in series with the on board micro serial line, but when an external controller is attached via magnetic connector it bypasses the resistor and controls the LEDs?

[@Matrepied]

I made this exact project a while ago but not using a led matrix but with a led band all around a cube and a diffuser in front of it. You’re version is really cool !

[@nevyn]

Oh man these look fantastic. I would love to build some of these and hack together some nice patterns or something. Maybe angle the sides so one can make rings? Make a hexagon version?

[@JoeBee9]

If I owned a mansion, I'd hire you in a heartbeat to deck the place out with cool experimental lighting. I'd go for a pleasantly colourful but obviously not headache inducing scheme.

[@spartan456]

RE soldering the magnet clips on, an easier way to do this would be to add a bit of flux to the pads, insert the connector, tin the tip of your iron with solder, then hold the magnet connector in place with tweezers. I would probably use a chisel or knife tip for this, as you can hold it at a very steep angle and have maximal thermal linkage. Touch the fattest, widest part of the tip to the BACK of the pins, as far away from the magnet as possible. This will allow you to tack each pin down. Additional flux is a must for this, as the flux will allow the solder to travel off your iron tip and onto the pads. Then you can let go with the tweezers, since the connector will now be sufficiently held in place by a little bit of solder. From there, you can easily go in and solder up each pin more sufficiently one at a time. Use the back of the pins (similar position as when you tacked them) to keep the iron as far away from the magnet as possible, and flow the solder in from the side closest to the magnet.

[@80Jay71]

Wow! I watched the clip from start to finish and realized I have no idea what was going on, but the LEDs looked cool!

[@jstro-hobbytech]

That's awesome. Who do aisler use as a shipper to north america? Dhl charge 17 dollars at the border for brokerage fees. They are the worst if you live in Canada. They are my favorite addressable led type. I have a ton of them.

[@daemuth9614]

These look amazing! I'd love to build these. Would it be possible to request a tutorial? I can solder things just fine but the details with the programmer go above my head.

[@Soundwave857]

8:20 any chance you mean document limit? You can change everything you are not working in to protected and you can make as many new ones as you like

[@bitluni]

yeah, probably. it was just one annoying thing too many. ain't nobody got time for that

[@whosle]

This is a concept that I thought about before as well. Really cool to see it implemented. 90 degree connectors would be cool to make cubes and 3d shapes. I also want to make these.

[@NoodleFlame]

I did something similar to make my own nano leaf display, the magnetic connectors are very satisfying!

[@Jakob127]

How is it current wise? I think you would reach the maximum of what the magnet connectors can handle with like 2 or 3 boards when they run on full brightness...

[@ewoudoudijk1256]

Dayum, this is super cool man!

[@S.M.A.Batista]

Amazing project. Wow, you have some serious talent for this.

[@georgev.georgeson5300]

You are great, bituni! Thank you so much for sharing your inspiring ideas, it's so fun to watch your process.

[@hannesknofel8408]

Having a programmable, extendable led-Display with that would be amazing! Please continue working on the code, this looks amazing :)

[@i_am_not_a_pro_but_lets_try]

that is such a cool project - and I can already think of some uses for the magnetic connectors in a couple of home projects - hadn't even thought about them before.

[@anthonypalmer1886]

I love modular stuff! This is awesome! 🤩

[@marcusm5127]

Very cool. Could you make a large one for displaying pictures? I love the idea of a diy art display with high brightness capabilities.

[@CodyWilliams-s8o]

It’s super cool to see home brew LED work.

[@StudentCorner-jk8yy]

Man you gave me a whole bunch of ideas because past 1 yr I was working on a similar type of DIY stuff

[@bradleybertola3580]

I would love to make these, thank you for posting this creative project. I could do the build, but programming the lights would be difficult for me. Please keep going with this project and this idea!

[@FareedClarity]

Very cool. I have been following since the making of the LED wall and this project is really very cool.

[@0xDEAD_Inside]

This is really really good! I was looking for something similar and lo & behold, bitluni uploads magnetic version of it!

[@pascaldupree7471]

The problem you had with Fusion, if you put some of your projects on "Read-Only" you can save new projects again and later you can put the projects you want to work on back to "Editable", but only have 10 active Editable projects at a time

[@TheRainHarvester]

Until they change it again! This is why i wrote "GatorCAM for CNC" on my channel.

[@Benjy7495]

How much additional time/knowhow would it take to create a 16x16 array of the 8x8 magnet enclosures with a display driver that I could output image/video from a laptop? I love the magnetic nature of these, and could see making a frame that they could sit in (also magnetised) and be used for lots of other things?

[@justbendev2324]

Good job ! I like channels that make Clean production like products and PCBs.

[@user-vw4cg8cy4f]

To reduce the amount of simple mistakes in the PCB design, just print it out 1:1 scale on a sheet of paper how it would look once its fabricated. I caught many mistakes this way which were not obvious when viewed through a monitor.

[@Lumalee]

I love these led projects. Please do more if you enjoy them too

[@richards7909]

This style of LED imo makes it look even better :)

[@MacDork]

This is truly incredible. Great work!

[@dog3y3]

Here's an idea: I've always wanted a way to communicate to other vehicles around me on the highway... even just one word could mean a whole lot to people. For instance, we saw an accident on the opposite side of the freeway, and SOOOO many people were stuck in traffic behind it... many didn't know which lane was open so everyone was causing issues jumping back and forth across lanes to whichever lane might be open... They just needed a note... a sign to let them know which side had the accident and which lane was open.... I think a lighted sign, where you could snap together a long brick and type out "Left Lane Open" and put it on the cab of your car while everyone is inching along.... could help a lot of people. OR siting behind a car that is dumping oil all over the ground.... maybe the guy doesn't know their car is about to self destruct. Maybe he needs a sign in his rear view (mirrored letters of course) that says: "Major oil leak- you" You never know, it could be really good karma coming your way.

[@hobbyistnotes]

Those 11 mins flew by, amazing content!

[@lorvarz7639]

Out of curiosity, the 8x8 board had 64 LEDs, each with 3 channels for color data, so how does one control the color of each LED individually? is it just very fast muxing or is there another better way?

[@naikrovek]

It's really a shame that everyone knows about the WS2812 LEDs and so few people know about APA102C LEDs. The APA102Cs are better in literally every single way. They don't fail when soldering, they have much higher frequency PWM, so they're way better if you want to take pictures of them or use them in a POV display, they use plain SPI instead of some bonkers protocol that requires specific timing, so they'll work with literally any microcontroller, and they have built-in voltage regulation.

[@TheRainHarvester]

Do they cost more?

[@MickeyToler-ye9ds]

This project is awesome.

[@robertkettmann4986]

This was insane! Thanks for sharing your work!

[@Omegawerewolfx]

No electronic skills here at all, but stuff like this makes me wanna learn but I am already doing school for my passion path. Maybe eventually. I have the patience to solder at entire wall of those tiles. Very cool project. I was anxiously waiting to hear you say "Version 23 arrived in the mail" :P

[@leightonwestbury92]

That is just absolutely EPIC.......... i really wish i had just some of your knowledge

[@Abdullu]

with the yet unsoldered through-hole LEDs stuck in place using the black 3D-printed hole plate, you could give solder paste a try for a speedier soldering flip the board upside down, smear solder paste around the holes, and put it in the oven. ... and: maybe adhesive tape can help to temporarily fix the magnetic connectors during soldering with an attracting soldering iron

[@darknessblades]

smart move to use those magnet connectors. it allows for a smaller footprint and no loose wires

[@Fabian-_-]

Some more info on the blender modeling part would be cool, I recently tried to model something simple and struggled quite a bit using Blender. The other CAD programs sucked or didn't work well on Linux, so Blender was the best option, but all the boolean stuff wasn't as nice as I had hoped it to be. Wouldve been a lot easier if one could simply group objects together like in 2D in Figma for example

[@IndustrialJones]

For booleans you want to check face orientation (all facing out). The overlay drop down has an option for it. Just takes time but it gets easier. The default units to work in is meters but I use that as centimeters. 1 unit = 10 mm and export at 10x scale. I tried working in mm but the scale feels to small if that makes sense

[@andrut]

Awesome project! I feel like potential apps would love some touch support. You could add infrared sensors between the rgb leds. IR emiters could be distributed sparsersely; only few per board. Milky plastic in color leds would happily diffuse IR light. Or maybe some form of capacitive sensing? but not sure how it would work with all the blinking leds. Or maybe some strain gauge sensors in the corners of each module for single point sensing? just my 2 cents

[@lui5gif]

I wonder if it's possible/desirable to use one of those demagnetizing blocks for screwdrivers on the soldering iron tip, to make it non magnetic

[@joeylo2365]

This is so so so cool, if this can be sell to public, I believe I will buy a lot of them for fun and study.

[@cristiturcanu7769]

Time to run Conway's game of life on these bad boys

[@savagesarethebest7251]

About soldering the pins on the magnet connector,you might want to get a copper bit for your soldering iron.

[@taigaixi]

def see this tech taking over at carnivals and small shows

[@cyphre]

Yet another product I would just buy as a product. Or at least a complete kit of some sort.

[@trongcuong1710]

nice work there. I wonder how the board can change pattern when connect to another board. Like how it know that there are another board connected to it and how to determine which edge to light up

[@imaginitivity7853]

Can you make a hot plate to have a lake of solder to dip the back plane into so all the joints are made at once?

[@keukenrol]

Very nice job. I expect power to become an issue with larger setups. Maybe each board can have its own dc-dc regulator with capacities to catch current spikes and to allow the small pins to pass trough plenty of power.

[@dazealex]

Coolest thing I've seen in a loooong while.

[@leno764]

What an amazing project! How does each time know how it's connected to the others to adapt what's displayed ?

[@user-et3uc1ij5v]

I would buy these, or a kit of parts, in a heartbeat. I’d love to see a bouncy ball routine where the movement if the ball was determined by the shape of the tiles.

[@Altrovexrecords]

Hi, I'm very impressed by your fantastic projects...Wow, it lights so cool.... Best greatings from Luxembourg, Marc

[@dvohwinkel]

Project files giving a 404 error. REALLY cool project!

[@GrizlyMad]

Just delete the "6x6" at the end of the link

[@testman9541]

Those LED are great, I would love that there exist with an embed touch controler 🎉

[@SpringySpring04]

I can't help but wonder, since the magnetic connectors are 4 pins, would it be possible to make something kind of like that custom batter pack you made, but is like another board with a USB data port so you could override the microcontroller inside without having to take the casing off?

[@led_man]

Those F8 LEDs are also available in 12v and 5v RGBW

[@HDefectus]

Got a 404 on the github link btw

[@lasarkolja9692]

I guess the repo is still private.

[@GrizlyMad]

Just delete the "6x6" at the end of the link

[@ThatGoth]

For your next project a tiny dab of superglue on the plastic holds magnetic ports in place great when soldering.

[@Tech-Random]

Great project! When’s the full wall coming?

[@deadmusik9969]

This is so cool, I need to learn circuit design so I can step up my led sculptures

[@Alpha-fc3bo]

Wow, this is an amazing and fun project! A use case i can think of is in the club! We can have a wall that has the LEDs

[@tonysfun]

Just like usual, you are very talented and even your video's are well done! Thank you for sharing your ideas and videos.

[@ThatOneGamedev.-pi8or]

If you could make these and sell them for decently cheap then you could make a ton of money, this is an insane project!

[@matthewgallagher8803]

I looked at the list and had a newbie question. The LEDs were 5v but the connectors say they’re 12v, do I need something to convert between the two?

[@BunkerSquirrel]

this is fantastic. Like insanely cool. Wonder if there's a way to make this connectible to a PC or Raspberry pi to play videos or sequences over HDMI or DisplayPort while having the resolution dynamically update based on the number of panels connected.

[@feynthefallen]

My thoughts so far: - You could make a magnetic or metallic jig to solder the connectors in the proper place quite easily - You should probably solder the connectors first and the LED after that

[@chromosundrift]

Thanks for sharing this video of your amazing project. Do I understand correctly that these magnet tiles will scale to a wall-size? What resolution wall would this likely be?

[@Tricyclthief]

I see when you connect them they go into a flashing ring cycle, are you able to program each section to have an individual image? I'd like to do something like this to spell static words using each block as a letter.

[@OscarSommerbo]

Magnet connector link ends up at the led page... And the github link is broken too.

[@qiou29]

Github project name has changed if I remove 6x6 from the repo name.

[@OscarSommerbo]

@@qiou29 But that has no 3d printing flies, that I could find.

[@ptejada365]

Such a cool project