Brads Electronic Projects Forum

Hi all,

Feel free to post here some project ideas that perhaps have been running around in your head but you haven't got around to building. I know I am always thinking of different ideas that never actually get made... So here goes!

1. Something that I have been thinking about for quite a while now is some sort of two player wireless game system.

It would feature two separate devices, each having their own 8x8 LED matrix, control pad and wireless transmitter and receiver.

You would be able to play games such as two player tetris, connect 4, battleships and some other games I have thought of in my head which would be similar to the mario bros game I came up with but the goal would be to chase each other around a Mario level and try and jump on each other or something like that.


2. I have also wanted to make an LED coffee table. something similar to this would be quite cool:



You could program it to do all sorts of things - even play games from the LEDBOY etc...

I guess that's a starting point anyway. I'll be writing my idea's here as I come up with them and maybe one day in the future - i'll get around to making them!

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Ok I have been thinking of a cool led project to do for Halloween. This helmet is what made me want to make something.

It is a helmet worn by the band Daft Punk. While this project is just out of my reach several people have made replicas of it. I was thinking of making a rubik's cube with led matrix's. It would have five sides. Each side would have 9 8x8 matrix's. It would be a 24x24x24 led matrix in all. I would like to make them all rgb but this could send the price through the roof. 8x8=64x9=576x5=2880x3=8640 individual LED's.
It would look like.

I am just trying to justify it with the cool factor. I would like to make it with animations so that it would have the "flashing light" factor. This is why I would like to make it rgb. This would allow me to move the blocks around the cube and have cooler animations.
Now this is all still in the thought proses. If someone has an idea on another similar project I would love to hear about it. I am just posting it to see what ideas are sparked by it.

Now that would be cool!

A way to make it a little cheaper would be to use individual Red, Green and Blue LED's rather than RGB LED's.

You are looking at about 3 cents each for a single colour LED compared to 30 - 40 cents for an RGB LED.

Interesting idea that I have not seen before

I have seen that before where you use a green a blue and two smaller red LEDs to make a pixel. This would work a little better but how would you make the 8x8 matrix's? As far as materials I am in the blind. I have seen many different displays that make a grid and put a diffused plastic over it. That would probably work well. I am just not sure where to start with finding the materials. The electronic part of this project would not be very hard to set up. It would really just be 5 identical screens that you could set to run by themselves or have a master control them. The frame would also not be a problem. The things that I would need more advice on would be how to make an 8x8 led display with standard LED's(not the electrical part but the cosmetic part). Next if someone had an idea on how to see out of the cube it would be great. I am thinking of the area between the screens could be made of a tented or reflective glass/plastic.

Here is a picture of what I would like each matrix to look like

as far as the size and shape but be homemade like this picture

I am thinking some diffused perspex or possibly glass?

i have a couple of friends working on a table just like in the photo you posted, they are using four of each LED per pixel and then using diffused perspex to finish it off. Ill get photos of their work to see the effects.