Introduction: Pixel LED Art : Pandol Wall Panel Decorations

A pandol is a large decorative structure, often illuminated with colorful lights and artistic designs, built during cultural or religious festivals to depict stories, symbols, or traditional themes. It serves as a centerpiece that attracts visitors and celebrates creativity and heritage.


So I wanted to share with you how to use Pixel LEDs and how to create beautiful decorations with them. This will be especially useful if you want to make something for the upcoming Christmas season. All you need is just a little bit of creativity.

First, let’s take a look at what we need to get started.

Supplies

Here is everything you need:

  1. Pixel Pulse Controller or T1000s Controller
  2. WS2812 Pixel LED Black PCB (60LED Per Meter- More Better Output with 100/144 LED Per Meter)
  3. 5V 5A Power Supply (If you use more than 600 LEDs, recommend to use 10A or more)
  4. Circuit Wires
  5. Scissors
  6. Soldering Wires & Soldering Iron
  7. MDF Sheet / Baclk Cladding Sheet for place LED(You can use any flat board)

(Because of a mistake during my order, I received the white PCB strip. When you place your order, make sure to choose the black PCB.The black PCB looks much better when the lights are glowing.)

Step 1: Preparing Pixel Art Panel

For this demonstration, I decided to start by making a rectangle. You can choose any shape you like. I selected this because it's one of the easiest shapes to begin with. At the end, I’ll also show you how to create a circular frame.

Step 2: Pixel LED Matrix of Shape

Here, I’m using a 5-meter roll of WS2812 Pixel LEDs with 60 LEDs per meter. For my rectangle, I chose a layout of 30 LEDs horizontally and 10 strips vertically. That gives us a 30×10 matrix.

Here I’ve marked the start of the LED data input as P1 left corner. From there, after 30 LEDs the next strip begins. The data line then continues in a zig-zag pattern through the pixel LEDs.

If you look at the numbering from 1 up to 300, you’ll get a good idea of how the layout flows.

Step 3: How to Cut Pixel LED Strip Properly

When cutting the Pixel LED strip, make sure to cut exactly at the cut mark. There’s a faint white line indicating where to cut. Use scissors and cut precisely along that line.

When you buy a 5-meter roll of 60 LEDs per meter, it is enough to cut 10 strips of 30 LEDs each. The total number of LEDs will be 300.

Step 4: Placing Pixel LED on Frame Correct Order

To attach the Pixel LED strips, I used a piece of cardboard. But if you want something more permanent and stable, you should use a stronger and smoother surface like MDF or a similar solid board.

Before sticking the LED strips, I drew straight guide lines on the board. This made it much easier to place each LED strip neatly and evenly.

Next, I took one of the 30-LED strips I had cut and attached it to the bottom row of the board. At this stage, the most important thing is to check the Data In and Data Out directions very carefully. Make sure the Data In side is on the left, where the data signal begins, and the Data Out side is on the right, where the signal ends.

After that, the second strip starts from the right side and goes toward the left. Then the third strip goes again from the left toward the right.

This zig-zag pattern is how the LED strips should be arranged, and it makes the wiring very easy.

Step 5: Connecting Power Line & Data Line

Once all the strips are attached, the next step is to connect the data lines and power lines. Each LED strip must receive proper power.

As shown in my photo, connect the 5V and GND lines to all strips—both on the left and right sides. I used black and red wires for GND and 5V, so you can see how I connected them.

Next, connect the Data Out from the first strip (on the right side) to the Data In of the second row. Then, connect the Data Out from the second strip (on the left side) to the Data In of the third row, and continue this way for all the strips. I used a green wire to connect the data line on both ends, as you can see.

After connecting all the LED strips, you can connect your Pixel controller to the 5V and GND lines. Then, connect the Data Out from the controller to the Data In of the first LED strip. I used a yellow wire to show this clearly.

Finally, you can supply 5V and GND power to both ends of the strips using a power supply. Before turning on the power, double-check all your wiring to make sure everything is correct. If there are any mistakes, correct them before powering up.

Now you’ve finished building your Pixel LED panel.The next step is to create the pattern you want to display.

Step 6: Select Software for Designing Pattern

The Pixel controller I got is said to support five different software programs.

  1. LED Matrix Studio (Free and open-source software)
  2. X-Lights (Free and open-source program)
  3. LED Build (Free download software)
  4. LED Easy (Free download software)
  5. RGB Screen Recorder (Free download software)

I explored these programs and found that X-Lights has plenty of tutorials on YouTube and is great for creating custom patterns. I also looked at LED Matrix Studio, which is excellent and also has many tutorials available online.

Then I checked LED Build. There aren’t many tutorials for it, but it already includes some beautiful patterns within the software itself. Since this software is relatively new, I decided to focus on LED Build and show you how to use it.

You can download the software version I’m using from here. I’m using version 4.47. Download it and install it on your computer.

LED Build V4.47: https://bit.ly/4n0Eee9

Step 7: Software Configurations

After you download the software, open it. Then you will see an interface like this. First, go to the ‘Setting Sculpt’ section marked as number 1. This is where we set up the matrix you built so it matches correctly inside the software.

Step 8:

Then you will see a window like this. After that, go to the place marked as number 2. When you click it, a window called ‘Setting Size’ will appear. There, it will ask for the width and height of our matrix in pixels. The matrix we built earlier is 30 × 10, so we set the width to 30.

For the height, I did not enter 10 instead, I entered 100. The reason is that I want to leave some extra space at the bottom because I plan to create an animation that moves upward. As we continue, this will become clear to you.

Step 9:

Once you click OK, you will be able to see the 30×100 matrix displayed on the screen. If it does not appear in the same view as mine, you can use your mouse wheel to zoom in or out until the matrix is centered and visible.

At this stage, do not worry, although the matrix shows as 30×100, we will actually be using only the top 30×10 section.

Next, I will begin drawing the wiring diagram.

Before doing that, make sure that “Connection Mode” on the left panel is set to “Return Row” because we arranged our LED strips in horizontal rows.

After confirming that, I slightly zoom in on the matrix using the mouse wheel to get a clearer and more detailed view.

Next, as shown in the second image, I marked a vertical line from the top down to the 10th row. This indicates the starting point of our LED strip.

I place the mouse pointer (the “+” cursor) at that starting point, click, and then drag it downwards until the end point, releasing it there.

Once this is done, you will see that all 300 LEDs are highlighted in red wire, showing the correct sequential order. The starting point is labeled P1.

Since the method to do this is not clear, I uploaded a GIF to see.

Step 10:

After that, you need to go to the setting marked as number 5. It is the button that looks like a small Hammer icon.

When you open it, you will see the window "Controller setting". First, under Light Type, it will be set to RGB by default. Since we are using WS2812 LEDs, I change it to GRB.

Next, under Controller Type, select SB/SC, and then click Apply. After applying the settings, you can click the Exit button.

Now everything is correctly configured for your LED panel. The software has the correct mapping and settings.

Next, we can move on to creating the lighting patterns.

Step 11:

To create a pattern, we now need to exit the current screen. To do that, click the arrow icon at the top labeled Return.

When you press it, the software will ask whether you want to save your work. Click Yes, then choose any location on your computer and save the file with a name of your choice.

After saving, the pattern-creation window will open. This is the same window that appeared when we first opened the software.

If your matrix is not visible at first, simply use your mouse wheel to zoom in until it becomes clearly visible.

Step 12: Pattern Designing

Next, go to the Design tab on the left side and select PictureAndText. In this section, you must first set the Stunt option to Push/Right. Then, under Make frame number, enter 100. We use 100 because earlier we created our matrix with a height of 30×100.

Step 13:

Alright, let’s create a pattern.

First, I used Paint on Windows 10 to draw a colored arrowheads image on a black background and saved it as C1.png Now, we are going to import this image into our matrix.

To do this, go to the File List in the software and click the Browse button. Select the image you created.

After doing this, you will see that the image C1.png, which we created in Paint, appears in the software.

Next, go to the Action tab and click Style2(2) once.

In the top-right corner of the software, you will notice that the Frame value has increased to 200.

Step 14:

After creating the artwork in Paint with a 30x100 background, you’ll notice that although there are 200 frames, the initial frames are actually empty. To clean this up, I remove the first 89 empty frames.

Here’s how to do it:

  1. Right-click on the matrix in the software.
  2. From the window that appears, select Delete. (Make sure to click only the Delete button at the top, not the one at the bottom.)
  3. In the Frame Operate window, set Start Frame to 1 and End Frame to 89.
  4. Click OK.

After this, you’ll see that the first frame is now Frame 111, indicating the empty frames have been removed.

Next, click the Play button in the software (green triangle). You’ll see your animation play smoothly.

Actually, even if it seems like the animation is playing across the entire matrix from the bottom, don’t worry. When we export it, only the frames that fit our actual matrix size will be included.

Step 15:

Alright, now let’s export the pattern we created and put it on the controller’s SD card to see how it works.

First, in the software, go to the main tab file section and select the Output Controller Data option. When you do that, a window appears asking you to Select Frame Range. Here, I don’t make any changes and just click OK.

After that, another window appears asking where to save the file. At this point, I select my SD card and save the file directly to it.

Step 16: Render ART on Matrix

Alright, after saving the exported file to the SD card, we need to create a "pixel-pulse-mini-config.txt" text file for the controller so it can run the pattern properly. I’ll explain the details as shown in your photo:

NUM_LEDS=300
CHIPSET=WS2812
Color_Order=RGB
LED_Brightnes=50
Frames_Delay=60
File_Hide=NO
  1. NUM_LEDS=300 → We use 300 LEDs in our setup, so we set it to 300.
  2. CHIPSET=WS2812 → Since we are using WS2812 LEDs, we specify this here.
  3. Color_Order=RGB → Earlier in the software, we changed the color order to GRB, so here we set it to RGB to match.
  4. LED_Brightnes=50 → Sets the brightness of the LEDs. I used 50, but you can increase it to 75 or higher if you want more brightness.
  5. Frames_Delay=60 → This determines how long each frame of your pattern is displayed. I set it to 60, meaning the controller will display each frame for 60 milliseconds.
  6. File_Hide=NO → Specifies whether the pattern file should be hidden. I set it to NO.

Right, after saving both the exported pattern file and the configuration file to the SD card, the next step is to insert the SD card into the controller.

nsert SD card. Make sure it’s properly seated in the SD card slot of your LED controller.

Once powered, the controller should automatically read the configuration file and the pattern file, then start running the animation on your LED matrix.

Attachments

Step 17:

Likewise, I added some simple colors and applied some paint-style coloring. So this is how even a big animation is created. The main thing is that it becomes beautiful based on the drawing you add in the beginning. When you work on this a little more, you can create a nice animation. Since this is the first lesson, I don’t explain very complex things because it’s hard to absorb everything at once. First make two or three simple art designs and try them out.

here you can download pattern dat files.

Step 18: Round Shape Matrix Guide

Now you all know how the matrix works. When we attached the matrix strip earlier, we attached it horizontally.

When making a circle, we can’t attach it horizontally, so we attach it as straight strips (vertical). Even though we attach straight strips around the circle, that is also still a matrix. The only difference is the way we attach the strips.

Here I have included one that I previously made and finished. Its 14 by 41 strips & total led 574. I have placed all the wires in black because I wanted a clean finish. I also attached the LEDs onto a black aluminium board. So it looks very neat, as you can see.

Just like before, when mapping this matrix in software, we selected “Return Row” in the “Connection Mode,” because earlier we placed the strip horizontally. Now, since we are attaching the strip vertically for the circle, we must select “Return Col” to create the matrix. That is the only difference. All other steps are the same.

Step 19: Pro Level ART

Creating a large display all at once is a very complex and challenging task. First, you need to get familiar with designing patterns in the shapes you want. In this guide, I’ve provided a simple introduction to help you get started. Once you gain enough practice, you’ll be able to tackle more complex projects.

Today, we created a simple panel, which is part of a larger display. By mastering how to build one panel, you’ll easily understand how to create additional panels and connect them together. Try using this to make something for Christmas!

In the future, I plan to share more tutorials. Stay tuned! If you have any questions, feel free to ask below. :D