Endless Ikosahedron

Just a simple testsetup for making something similar as this big version, cube and dodecahedron version. Made of acrylic with a light shading semitransparent foil and standard WS2812 stripes (60leds/m) - semitransparent acrylic mirrors as well as LED stripes with more LEDs/m are on the way for more interesting versions. But even this quick build version with basic example program looks nice.

First cut triangles with 12cm side, then put the triangles on the semitransparent foil (removed backtape and sprayed with glas cleaner). Cut the foil roughly in shape, the try to remove bubbles etc. Afterwards, the foil is cut in the exact triangle form. Could be of course simplified if the semitransparent acrylic mirrors are used directly :).

Then the triangles are glued together with transparent tape (just for testing). Inside, on each edge a stripe of WS2812b is taped on and also fixated with transparent tape. Both are not the nicest solution, but the quickest.

Wiring is a bit complicated, since no one-lined version can be used (nikolaus graph problem and so on), therefore i tried to use as many edges in a row as possible, leaving few edges often. Here the data line is routed back parallel to the stripe with a thin silver wire. This wire is also used for the rest of the short data line connections as well as VCC and GND.

Both VCC, GND, and the first DIN line is at the end routed out of the Ikosahedron with standard twisted wires on one corner, which can be either hidden in a stand or in this case as a mounting wire.

An Arduino Nano is used for data input, with the strandtest example program from Adafruits Neopixel library for testing the program.

While stripes and tapes are not hidden, the selfmade semitransparent mirror not perfect and not enough LEDs for a continouus line effect, the ikosahedron already works with a nice galaxy effect.

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