DodecaRGB

DodecaRGB V2 is a modular, high-resolution programmable blinky gadget that was made for the hacker community, especially for coders that want to do spherical animations. It's 12cm in diameter, hand-held size, with 1620 RGB LEDs.

Typically, this is quite hard - you either need to make a spinning POV globe, or wire up custom solutions - not to mention power and performance challenges. Here we use custom PCBs designed for this model.

This project aims to create a standard platform for resolution-independent animations based on spherical models (a developing library here called PixelTheater). DodecaRGB V2 is the second iteration of this platform, and serves as a reference implementation.

The PCBs are sold at hacker conferences and to friends currently, and the frame is 3D printed. The firmware, 3d models and tooling are open source and free to use and modify.

All LED points were mapped to 3D space using PCB component coordinates and some Python math. There's a web simulator that runs the firmware with emscriptenwhich runs the same animations. Multiple scenes can be loaded and adjusted in real-time with controls (or sensors, like orientation).

The firmware allows the animation of these points. Using a Teensy 4.1 microcontroller, we can get over 60 frames per second across all 1620 LEDs.

There’s enough space inside of the model to hold a standard USB battery pack and microcontroller, making it fully portable. It will run for about 5h at a reasonable brightness.

This project was previewed at the 2023 CCC Camp in Germany, with over 6000 attendees, and some prototype kits were sold.

More instructions and info will be posted here soon, along with source code.