LED Pixel Cube

by fungus amungus

5.1K139

Intro: LED Pixel Cube

An LED pixel cube is a plastic container with an LED, battery and magnet on one end a translucent square of paper on the other. The magnet lets it stick to metal surfaces and the effect from a distance is that of a glowing square. Make a lot of these and you can start to draw an image. Make a ton of them and you'll even have a massive glowing QR code.

Really, we did this.

STEP 1: What You Need

Supplies

2032 coin cell battery
white LED
neodymium magnet
plastic container
tracing paper
X-acto blade or other cutting tool
super glue (not pictured)
hot glue (not pictured)

STEP 2: The Screen

To make the end of the box glow, it needs a translucent coating. Tracing paper is perfect for this and easy to apply. Just cut out the square to the same size. This is easily done by putting the container on the paper and cutting with a razor.

With the square ready, apply tiny dabs of super glue on the corners of the box and press the paper down onto it.

STEP 3: Add Magnet

To secure the magnet to the bottom, apply some hot glue inside on of the corners of the containers lid. Then drop the magnet on top and place other magnets underneath it to pull the interior magnet flush against the lid.

STEP 4: Prepping the LED and Battery

Put the LED onto the battery. If it didn't light up, just flip the LED over.

Good, now the next step is to bend the LED so that the LED is facing up towards the anode (-) side. In other words, the flat side of the battery is down and the curved side is up.

With that set, tightly wrap electrical tape around it a few times.

STEP 5: Put It All Together

Almost done. Drop the battery/LED combo on top of the magnet and it will be stuck together. Now just attach the body of the container and it's lit up!

If the LED is off center, just remove the lid and adjust the LED direction until you're happy with it.

That's it! Enjoy.

9 Comments

Numbuh1Nerd 11 years ago

Your video doesn't work. Says "This video does not exist."

ncunico 12 years ago

What I need to know is, can a tiny wireless switch be made to turn this on or off. I am making a terminator appliance and need to be able to turn it on or off. It needs to be tiny to also fit under the appliance..

astroboy907 12 years ago

I see billions of these..... :)

BrefelanDesigns 12 years ago

Wow that is neat! Reminds me of those LED Throwies... but with more of an artistic bent! Also love that the QR code actually worked!

Kryptonite 12 years ago

...Woooow.

How many people did you have working on the QR image and about how long did it take? It looks spectacular. The video covers just a little about the project, just a little about making and a little about Instructables, it's brilliant!

fungus amungus 12 years ago

About a dozen people for two hours or so. Hard to say as the crew kept changing in size.

joespicnictables 12 years ago

What type of case did you use? I'm thinking of making a 3D projector with this.

fungus amungus 12 years ago

It's from the container store.
http://www.containerstore.com/shop/giftPackaging/creativeContainers/boxes?productId=10003497

The 1 5/8" sq. x 2 7/8" box.

leeski 12 years ago

That's a good idea. my son is into star wars and I wonder how we can adapt this to make an r2d2.