It’s a giant DIY TV! When you’re done building it, making the lights do what you want is as easy as editing a video — no coding required. Hang your LED screen on a wall, or take it to your next outdoor festival and blow people’s minds.
I’ve written open source code to upload any video from anywhere to your new LED wall. All you have to do is put it together. The Teensy microcontroller from PJRC, paired with their OctoWS2811 shield, makes controlling lots of LEDs really easy using the Arduino programming environment.
This project, when completed, measures more than 2m (6′) wide, so it is best done with a friend.
Read through these steps. Knowledge is power!
When you’re done, show us what you got! Tweet your finished wall to @marginallyc and @make, and share in the comments below!
Amazing!!!. Can you please add a full list of materials? I’m waiting to try my own Jumbotron!
The parts and tools list is to the right of the intro text.
I didn’t see that either. Not a great layout, Makezine!
It would be nice if the links in the materials list actually brought one to a place where said parts are available for purchase or at least more detailed specifications. This is a major failure point on most if not all of the Make articles.
My thoughts on this is if you can’t do that by yourself then you don’t have the skill to complete the project anyway.
A little over the top & snarky but since were talking “thoughts” this mission of Make if Im not mistaken is to get more people involved in the Make movement & while you & I can research this and other details of projects or even create some from scratch others who are new may find such details to much a PIA, confusing, etc. As one who grew up making projects from Electronics magazines, etc. a basic tenant of “plans” is to provide as much information as needed to succeed in completing the project. Just because theres a search engine available doesnt mean each and every person interested in a project should have to look up the same info. over & over, etc.
You wed to pay more attention – the parts and tools list is clearly posted.
Maybe you should wait for a kit?
If you can’t find a component on the Internet, I suspect you are going to have difficulty constructing and programming it.
I, for one, like that Make isn’t touting some overpriced retailers wares, like so many others do.
I found all the components in around 15m using Google. If that’s too much for you, maybe making isn’t your bag?
My basic search.. looking at 2m of rgb led (30 rgb’s per meter) x 36. Your looking at roughly $1250.00 for just the leds.
Around $4-$4.25 a metre, around $300-400 max, including connectors. You are buying from the wrong place.
A link would be great. I am very interested in finding these cheaper. All I can find at that price are not individually accessible.
Not a recommendation of this vendor, just an example of what is available from this marketplace: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5M-30Pixel-M-150-5050-RGB-SMD-WS2811-IC-Built-in-WS2812B-WS2812-white-PCB-Addressable/32367479484.html?spm=2114.01010208.3.20.AcVCS1&ws_ab_test=searchweb201556_3,searchweb201644_1_505_506_503_504_9912_502_10001_10002_10016_10005_10006_10003_10004,searchweb201560_8,searchweb1451318400_-1,searchweb1451318411_6448&btsid=a32ec9b3-ceed-4df7-82ca-ea0c0c30c872
You want the ‘black IP20 5M’ ones – $17.50 for 5M, so your overall cost from that vendor would be about $250
Thanks for your help.
Thanks Sarchasm. I’m looking at making a 10m wide screen. It looks like these trips only come in 5m lengths. Do you think I could solder 2 x 5m together?
Yeah, easy. You can get plastic joiners that click two sections together, too. In straight and right-angle versions. I don’t use them, but my friends that do say they’re fine.
I prefer to solder.
Ok wow – that’s awesome! Thanks. I would solder as well, and I suppose it’s just a matter of working out the power required per line which shouldn’t be too bad.
Do you think I would have issues getting the signal to all 10 metres of my LEDs? The example on this page seems to have 66 x 40 LEDs.
If I purchase these: https://www.aliexpress.com/store/product/Waterproof-IP20-IP67-Black-PCB-5-Meters-Individually-Addressable-Color-WS2812B-5050-SMD-RGB-WS2811-LED/939973_32433992352.html
…that’s 600 LEDs per row for 10 metres. And if I’m going for a 16:9 screen, that’s something like 5.6 metres high, making it a LED resolution of 600 x 336 – that’s 201,600 LEDs! :O
I see that in the documentation of Teensy (https://github.com/i-make-robots/LEDWall/blob/64×36-wall/Teensy/videoDisplay/videoDisplay.ino) mentions that it’s possible to have hundreds in a row. So do you think it’s possible to do this at the scale that I’m talking about?
Thanks so much – there’s not much help out there so I really appreciate it!
hmmm just the LEDs alone would cost me about $38,000 Australian Dollars, so I think I need to find LED strips that are spaced further apart :) But anyhow – you get the idea – I’m just trying to make a 10m x 5.6 metre screen. Would the Teensy be able to handle it?
I can’t seem to find those specific LED strips that are 64 per strip, 30 per meter and the parts list link just loops back to this page :( Any help with that?
I got in touch with Dan Royer to see where he got his. His LEDs were WS2812B LEDs from a chinese OEM, customized to make assembly easier. Step 1 is no joke though, so I’m going to find out how exactly he wants to handle that and will get back to you when I know more.
Hi Lisa,
May I ask you if you have news please ?
Thank you very much
Have a great day
Hi Benichou,
There’s been a delay with the supplier. This is still on my radar and I will update this project and everyone in the comments as soon as I know more.
I hope you have a great day, as well :)
Maybe it’s just that I use Waterfox, but I click on “View All [Steps]” and it still just says, “Step #1. Construct a Giant LED Video Screen” …. Oh, is that all there is to it? Well that’s easy enough. :/
I’ve let the web team know. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Fixed now, thanks.
I’m not a huge fan of the WS28xx because of their strict timing requirements, but I know Paul Stoffregen has done some serious wizardry on the OCTO framework.
I’ve worked with APA102C strips at 144/m and jumping through hoops we were able to control 4320 of them at ~66fps realtime (256 dithering palette).
it was a pain in the teeth to have it all working but we pulled it off in approximately a month by writing all custom code in openFrameworks.
one of the many issues we had were the power supplies which had some pretty scary transients that could unpredictably reset the Teensy (we fixed it with a 180Ω resistor on the MOSI).
you can see the project here http://www.interactivepunchbag.com
That’s pretty amazing!
thank you
it was also pretty insane :D
What a great result! Well done.
I love this and am thinking about build one, but I’d like a larger / higher res tron. How can the approach be scaled up to a larger matrix?
Higher res, use 60/M LEDs. Bigger… Make it bigger. You will have problems using WS28xx LEDs as their timing is so tight. Better to use the APA102C LEDs, which will push the LED price to around $8-10/metre
I have a JVF 2010-a LED board powered by a 386 DOS computer and I’m wondering if I can replace the motherboard with an Arduino.
maybe you should name the parts and perhaps links?
Hello,
Could you give me your price with shipping for France
really Nice project
How much are you charging for the box of supplies without the Velcro?
How much is the box you said that you would be willing to sell in step one?
I can’t seem to find the teensy 3.1. Can I use the 3.2?
The figures for steps 8 & 9 don’t make much sense…they show both power and ground going to the same strip? I sure wish he’d publish a close-up photo or schematic.
They connect power (+/-) to the end of the strip as shown here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTRLt-fzTwg Careful asking for a schematic or part #’s lest you be chastised like I was:-)
Hello,
how much for that box full of LEDs and electronics to Portugal??
we can consider 18 strips only for now?!
i want to buy the box you mentioned…
would it be possible to use your program on a smaller led display?
hi i would like to find out what did you power with and if u are using battery packs how long does it last? I am doing an event which requires a large led screen on a tight budget and we are having a headache figuring out how to supply power to our structure which will be placed in the middle of the field, at night. Hope you can get back to me <:
Power supplies are listed in the parts list, batteries arent going to cut it! I dont buy that you need 3 X 50A though, frankly I dont even think it will draw 50A total being theyre LED’s but check the power draw on the LED’s/quantity youre going to use and go from there. You may be able to use one or more old PC power supplies:-)
will it work on an arduino uno board?
I would imagine it works on any arduino board.
Are these led strips required to be adressable? The parts list says nothing about it.
“collect all the parts”
*states 0 parts*
Hello, How can we access your website for purchases?
Thank you
Shenzhen Jucaiyuan Photoelectric Co,Ltd
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