Morning bub
The full story of the process behind making an LED matrix display for volatilestars‘s 18th birthday.
This idea hit me when memories from 11th grade came back to me. I remembered making a small C++ code in the ancient Turbo C++ compiler that flashed her name on the screen in many different colors. She was delighted. I could never forget that expression on her face and the fact that I put it there had me over the moon.
So I decided to make a screen she could take with her and smile at wherever she went.
The project consisted of several steps (this is in list format because she fucking adores lists):
Purchasing the material:
The matrix, the acrylic for the box around it, miscellaneous parts to hold the thing together.
Wiring the matrix and cutting down on the height to make it as slim as possible. This included stripping the cables down to the bare minimum and soldering as and when required. Quite an amount of redesigning took place.
Laser cutting the acrylic. Designing the cuts in CorelDraw and testing it out on numerous pieces of spare acrylic. Side note: Burnt acrylic smell isn’t something you’d want to wear on a date.
Piecing the entire box together using acrylic and UHU glue. Acrylic glue takes some time to get used to but it’s stronger than the bond of volatilestars and cold pizza. That’s pretty damn strong take my word for it.
Oh yeah I burnt my own finger soldering the damn thing. It hurt like a bitch and I cried like a pussy but I’m a man so. I like to call it a battle scar. I’m hundred percent sure she snickered when she read that line.
Making cuts for the USB and power and using the miscellaneous parts to make the box sturdy. Brackets which Jacob so kindly 3D printed for us were used.
Coding and timing the entire matrix. Adafruit libraries were used and many hours of testing lead to one of the most enjoyable and personal codes I have ever written. Coding is not easy okay.
Screwing everything in place and putting it into a gift box. Thanks to PP for all the material outisde of the box.
Oh yeah and I remembered to get a rose to put on the box because I’m cheesy like that. And she likes roses. And the mush. She won’t admit it but she fucking loves it.
Giving the present to the love of my life.
Thanks to all the people behind it especially Krishna without whom this box would just end up being an arbitrary oblong piece of acrylic far far from what I had envisioned.
From splitsecondjoker to volatilestars
P.S. I Love You.
