Summer 2025 Project by Aidan Sullivan, Yiling Li
This project is a custom-built LED display board, with board design inspired by Tech Random’s How to Build a Massive LED Wall on a Budget. This extends the existing board by adding our own flair of embedded programming, and creative applications for interactive visuals.
For WS2812 LEDs, each pixel requires 24 bits, each bit taking ~1.25 µs, plus a ~50 µs reset time after all pixels.
General Formula: t_frame ≈ (N × 24 × 1.25 µs) + 50 µs f_frame ≈ 1 / t_frame
For this board (16×36 = 576 pixels):
t_frame ≈ (576 × 30 µs) + 50 µs ≈ 17.3 ms
f_frame ≈ ~58 fps
- Microcontroller Used: ESP8266
- 16×36 LED matrix built with WS2812 strips
- Custom-built frame with diffuser for smoother light output
- Step-down converter for stable power management
- Pixel-level control
- Text rendering with wrapping support
- Full-board fill functions
Currently supports:
- Writing to single pixels
- Displaying and wrapping text
- Filling the LED board with colors
- Wireless data transmission with direct API integration (weather, flight-tracking, etc.)
- Interactive games (Pong, Tetris, etc.)
- Integration with the Musical Glove Project for synchronized visualizations