Make your own LED Bar - Part 1 (matrix frame,bar construction,WS2812B lighting system) - YouTube

One year ago I decided to build the biggest 15 by 10 RGB LED matrix.

It took a lot of time.

But as you can see, this 1.5 metre by 1 metre LED matrix works quite well nowadays.

But having just a matrix is a bit useless.

So i also built a frame around is with a nice self which lights up.

And i can change the colour animation with the press of the button,

and dimm the LEDs with a potentiometer.

This way it became my LED bar.

To serve drinks or just a put stuff on.

And it looks way better than i expected in the bigining!

That is why i will show you now, how i constructed the frame wall of matrix and the whole LED wall itself.

Including the electronics to controll the (shatel) lights.

Lets get started!

(Intro music)

Everithing is built around this 1.5 metre by 1 metre square of acrylic glass.

And we made sure it has a milk wight colour,

so that light can easily shine through and get defused at the same time.

Firstly we sawed wooden panels with a width of 12 centimetres, into 4 smaller peaces, with a () jigsaw.

And we use sanding paper to smooth the adges afterwards.

Those 4 peaces should lay the form to square for the acrylic glass.

So we use the bracket, to get a nice 90 degree angle between two panels,

and uses the (wall drill) to preet wheel the 2 holes in each intersection.

Than everything got secured with big wood screws afterwards.

And tha main frame was done!

Time for the most satisfying part!

By pealing off the protector film of one side of the acrylic glass.

We positiond the glass on top of the wooden frame,

and it's some basic measurements and mark where to insert 3 wood screws on each frame sides.

Now here is an advice when you drill acrylic glass!

Take your time!

You can't just put screws in without predrilling a hole!

And we also use a bigger drill to create an invitation for that the wood screws will lighter be flashed in the glass.

And the matrix frame is done.

The rest of the bar is mainly build with those long planks.

We strarted to saw 2 of those to a length of 1.495 metre.

And also 2 smaller ones to complete the square.

Which will be positioned underneath the top shelf, which is also a piece of acrylic glass,

with a width of 25.5 centimetres.

Again we used wood screws to build a square and also test is out how well light would shine through this glass,

and it looked pretty neat.

The dirt was just on the protector film by the way.

Than we went ahed and cut the glass.

So that it fits on the wooden frame.

And the top has done.

Now we used this top wooden square and built 2 more wooden squares around it.

And used smaller peaces of woods to connect them together.

Basicly it's all just wooden sqares.

It's a bit hard to explain but here is the result.

Which should give you a good idea of what i mean.

As you can see, we also used those big wooden panels for the sides.

We cut those with the jigsaw and mounted them again with wood screws.

And i used white paint to give the LED bar a nice colour.

Now let's talk about the lighting system!

This time i used a WS2812B LED strip which has more LED/metre as 2801 LED strip,

which you know from my "Ambilight" video.

It also only needs 1 pin of the microcontroller to control it.

Which is neat,

I chose the Attiny85 to keep everything small and cheap.

Here is the schematic.

We've got 1 push button of pull down resistor to select the mode,

and one 10kOhm potentiometer to set the brightness.

The potentiometer, LED strip and 5V power will be connected to the PCB with those terminals.

The building of the whole PCB only took me 15 minutes.

And i even made the board layout diagram for you guys!

So it should be really easy build.

As always you can download the schematic, code and find the part list on my instructable site.

Link is in description.

And dont forget to program the Attiny85 with your programming shield which i showed you in another video!

And you also need the "FastLED.h" library.

Sooo download it!

Now it is time to mount the LED strip,

underneath the acrylic glass.

And if you think: Why is the glass suddenly glued to the frame?

Well it was the first try and i removed it later.

But more about of it in the second part.

The first test with the strip was successful.

So we decided to fuse the matrix with the bar,

by pushing it slowly and carefully inside our wooden frame.

But it didn't look so greet.

So we pulled off the protector film on the side,

and built kind of like big (show) frame around it.

Again we used small wooden (planks), which are already painted white.

And i think it looks way better than before.

Because you cannot see the transition between the matrix and the bar anymore.

And it also hides the big screws and the acrylic glass.

Now it's time to score the PCB and break off the unnecessary part.

Than i soldered 3 wires to the LED strip, which later connect to the main PCB.

Afterwards i got myself a 5V, 3A power supply, which will be enough choose to power the strip.

I cut off the old plug and removed the isolation of the positive power wire.

And i was just double checked the polarity of the wires with my multimeter.

Here you can see, how i hotglued the PCB to one of the wooden walls.

Which was a good idea.

Because it is not too noticeable there.

But not a good idea was to glue the potenciometer and the power switch to this wooden side as well.

Because there was just 2 bid.

I will need to reposicion them and the second part.

Moving on to the top acrylic glass part,

which are already removed once.

I've just used one small line of Acrylic on the trame to glue the glass to it.

But silicon would have also worked fine.

Than with a steady hand and a bit of precision we allowed the glass onto the frame and pressed it in place.

Now the lighting effect does look way better than before!

Because i didn't used so much acrylic whitch is squashed out of the side like last time.

Would that mean said, let's and the first part here!

And find out how i completed this built in the next video.

As always, thanks for watching!

Don't forget to like, share and subscribe!

For more electronics projects, stay creative and i will see you next time!