Hi everyone,
I want to show off my latest project, its an LED alphabet I made from PCBs. They're covered in white LEDs and they can chained together with a little push-on connector, I call them Glow Glyphs.
I had started using KiCAD for the layout but quickly realized it would take me forever to get all the LED placements correct by hand so I ended up writing my own little piece of software to help me. I even ended up writing a panelization helper so I could fit more of the letters into the PCB vendors prototyping footprint (100mm x 100mm). I think the incumbent EDA tools suffer from an over-generalization problem, while you can conceivably design any type of circuit with them they seem to be poor companions for this type of specialized design: simple circuits, varied layouts, non-Manhattan geometry, panelization challenges (irregular outlines).
I hope you enjoy, and any feedback is appreciated. If you want to follow along with future updates, go here:
Cheers,
LeoneLabs
The heart has the coin cell battery on the backside and it shares its power with the 'I' and the 'U' when their chained together
With an external DC power supply its possible to make really long chains
Here's a deconstructed "power glyph" with the SMD parts I used
I forgot the '!' but you should read it in your head with the emphasis
Here's an example of the PCBs in the 100mm x 100mm panel. I used my own software to help me position the letters and add the tabs.
Here's the promo video