I'm a big fan of LED's.  So when I was first introduced to Youtuber Big Clive's Gallium LED Supercomputer I knew it was something I wanted to make.  I couldn't choose a colour so I decided on building four of the smaller panels and joining them to make an array.  It's a dazzling and mesmerising effect that the GIF does not do justice.  

The beauty of this design is that you use flashing LED's which will all come on together initially but very quickly go out of sync.  

I needed a frame to hold and display them so I designed one.  I wanted the pcb's to be relatively close to each other so I tried to make it with as thin a bezel as I could with my limited Fusion design skills.

My printer bed wasn't big enough for the full frame so I make it in two halves (four parts in total: two frame halves and two backplate halves).  I designed locating pins for the two halves and glued them together as well as securing them with four small bolts and nuts.  

The PCB's fit snugly in place but I added a couple of drops of hot glue to ensure they stay secure.  

The LED's were super bright so I was able to use 2K resistors for all of the colours except yellow in which I used 1K.  Even with these resistor values the LED's are very bright.  

The whole array of four panels consumes a tad over .2A when on so is extremely low cost to run.  

Big Clive's Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@bigclivedotcom

One of Big Clive's videos on this project:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1k7mxhWQ5Q

Download the gerber files here to order your own PCB's: https://www.bigclive.com/freebies.htm

HARDWARE USED:

For USB panel mount: M2 x 6mm hex head screws and nuts x Qty 2

For joining panels: M3 x 8mm button head screws and nuts x Qty 4 plus M3 washers x Qty 8 (use one each side of the join)

For securing backplate halves to frame halves: M3 x 6mm x Qty 10

Heat set inserts for frame: M3 x L=5mm x OD=5mm x Qty 10

ELECTRONICS PARTS USED:

54 flashing LED's per board (216 in total in whatever colours you choose)

54 resistors per board (216 in total, I used 162 @ 2K and 54 @ 1K for yellow)

Hook up wire

FR4 terminal strip for bus bar

USB C 6pin with CC1 and CC2 Panel Mount

Small 15mm Round Rocker Power Switch

PRINTING:

I wanted to be able to drop the PCB's into the back of the frame so I designed the wiring and hardware to attach to the inside of one of the backplate halves.  So be aware of the bus bar mounting tabs and make sure they are printed up and use supports just for the usb panel mount section and screw holes if you think you need.  

The STL's are named left and right as if looking from the back of the frame as that is where you will be working.

I used Prusament Galaxy Black PETG which looks awesome as it catches the lights and looks like it's alive.  No special filament requirement, PLA or PETG would be sufficient. PLA may mean the PCB's fit slightly looser but the hot glue will hold them nicely in place.

NOTE IF YOU ORDER GERBERS:

When I ordered the PCB's I made the mistake of selecting a black mask because I wanted the dark contrast as background to the LED's.  However, it is a single sided board so the mask only appeared on the side that would not be seen (I paid extra for this mistake, don't do the same!).  So instead I spray painted the front of the PCB's black and they turned out great.  Except as I was nearing the end of the build I decided in my infinite wisdom to clean my boards after soldering and of course made a bit of a mess of my paint job due to the solvent.  This should not have been a surprise but I just wasn't thinking.  Hence why in the pics you can see my boards haven't been cleaned nicely.  I decided to leave them as is and I patched up the front of the boards as best I could.  No real harm done in the end though because when the array is on you don't notice any blemishes.  If you know what you're doing you can actually include a top solder mask file with your gerbers and then select a black mask and two sided board but the ones you download from Big Clive won't have it.  Something to be aware of.