LED Video Cube PC

[FakeGamerGuy]

I guess it's time to start planning for my 2019 PAX BYOC build. PAX was last weekend, and even during the event I was already thinking about what I want to build for next year. I had the idea for a while of building something with a simple LED panel that could play simple animations, maybe behind tinted or reflective glass to make it look a little cooler. With that as my base I started thinking what the natural conclusion to that would be. Obviously, making my whole computer into an LED video wall, right? After doing some research I figured out how to achieve such a plan.

The giant video walls you see at concerts and stuff are made up of a ton of smaller panels, which are individually pretty cheap. Basically, they come in different pixel counts, typically 32x32, 64x64, and half-height versions. They also have different pixel densities (pitch), measured in millimeters, and written as P4 for pixels that are spaced 4mm from center-to-center. There is a huge variety of pixel densities, which means there are also a huge number of overall sizes. For this build, I wanted something that was a high resolution as possible/reasonable but also fit comfortably on a desk. More to the point, BYOC fits 3 computers per desk, even in the showcase, so it's in my best interest to make this build compact as well.

 

Because I knew I  would screw things up if I just winged it, I decided to mock up everything in Blender to test fit all the components. I decided that, if I used 4  64x64 P2.5 LED panels per side (2x2) I would end up with a 320mm^3 system, which is just over 1 square foot. This would net me 128x128 pixels on each side, or almost 50,000 pixels total.

 

 

I also wanted one side to have a window so components could be seen in the event that I get hardware sponsors. This left me with the only opening being on the back, which is a problem similar to one I had in the system I built for PAX last year. Eventually, I realized if I put the system on feet I could use the bottom as an intake or exhaust (haven't decided on airflow direction yet). I also decided that I was going to run a parallel loop for the first time for both space efficiency and aesthetics. I'm not 100% sure how well it's going to work out, but it seems to work well enough for GPUs and I think I've seen other respected system builders do it on occasion, so... YOLO?

 

 

In the renders I have the components color coded to make them easier to see what's what. Blue is the motherboard, yellow is the GPU, pink is the SFX PSU, green is the radiator, and purple are the fans. The blue panel is to hide wiring for the LED panels, though I haven't decided if I want to do that or not, and if I'll do it for the adjacent side as well. Final hardware hasn't been decided on, but I have mATX in the mock-up. The video card is based on my GTX 295 (my air cooled one) with a generic waterblock added on. The radiator is 240mm since 280mm wouldn't fit. While writing this and doing my final renders I realized that the res/pump combo I used for the mockups is res-only, and it's too late at night for me to make the changes, so I'll have to do that tomorrow. Also, please excuse the ugly bends in the top of the case; I haven't done 3D modeling in a while and I was rusty. The bottom bends are much better lol.

 

 

I'm still trying to decide on what I want to do for mounting the motherboard and securing the GPU. I'm leaning toward hacking up an old tower but that might also look kind of shabby, so we'll see how things turn out.

 

 

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Let me know what you guys think or if you have any feedback on the layouts. I ordered a few panels to do some testing with, and those are expected to be here in 10-30 days. Looking forward to posting photos of the mini-version of the cube.

[KrYpToCiD]

you could use on top or on side a hole hidden by the LCD. something like a false double wall. I can't explain right now the ideea but I'll show you what I mean in couple of hours, when I get home from work  

[Pixel5]

for me the internals are the least interesting part because the case size if enough to fit them anyways.

Im interested in what kind of LED´s you want to use and how you intent to drive so many of them let alone power them.

[FakeGamerGuy]

13 hours ago, Pixel5 said:

Im interested in what kind of LED´s you want to use and how you intent to drive so many of them let alone power them.

The panels come pre-assembled. They take 5v power, so the plan is to use the PC's power supply to run the panels.

 

Data is sent to the panels using a send and receive card. The send card takes DVI and processes the signal using a FPGA that sends the signal out over Ethernet. The receiver card takes that signal and sends it to each of 12 outputs. The panels can be daisy chained together horizontally, so each receiver card can power 12 rows of panels.

 

Edit: Though now that I'm looking at power again, I think my initial power calculations were assuming one panel per side (64x64 P5). P2.5 panels I ordered say they have a max power draw of 800w per square meter, and if I have 3 sides at 320mm square, that comes out to about 1/3 square meter, so 267w, divided by 5v, we get about ~53A. peak power draw (assuming all LEDs are white and full brightness). Looking at a few different power supplies it looks like they're all 20-25A on the 5v rail since most of the power is delivered on the 12v rail. When the panels come I'll monitor real power usage and figure out a plan.

 

Edit 2: It looks like 5v 60a power supplies aren't too big, so worst-case I could mount one here (red) and run the case lighting and cards off their own power supply. The  benefit, aside from not overdrawing from the computer's PSU, is that the case display could be used while the system is turned off (or empty, if I haven't built the system yet).

 

 

Edit 3: Rather than an additional AC-to-DC power supply, I think I'm going to look into a DC-DC converter to make use of the additional power on the 12v rails. Will probably end up with 1 per side.

[FakeGamerGuy]

My order shipped a couple days ago, and now the waiting game begins. Some time between next week and next month I'll be getting my send/receive cards and my 3 test panels. Once they show up I can start testing the lighting and taking measurements for building my enclosure.

 

 

I also spoke with an electrical engineer friend who has extensive experience with LEDs and he thinks that I'll be nowhere near the power draw the spec sheet states as long as I don't have every LED on white at full brightness. That, and LED power draw is logarithmic, not linear, so so even turning down the brightness a little will take the power draw down a lot.

 

Last night I remembered I have a micro-ATX case from and old build that's sitting empty and unloved, so I'm probably going to hack that up and recycle the rear IO panel and motherboard mounting tray for the build. Should make things a lot easier.

 

*twiddles thumbs*

[FakeGamerGuy]

Oops, I guess it's been 9 months since I updated the build thread. Then again, I didn't make much progress until a couple of weeks ago.

 

I ordered 12 new panels in addition to the 3 I already had (one of which I let the magic smoke out of), so now I have the 3x4 I need plus a couple extra just in case. I also got a new-to-me 3D printer, which I used to design little brackets to hold the panels together. These 3D printed brackets replace the thick, heavy-duty brackets that come with the panels from the factory. Here's a short video of the mostly-assembled cube in action: 

Since then I started designing updated brackets that will allow the fully-assembled "cube" to be lowered onto the frame, which will eventually house the full system.

 

 

Here you can see the bracket, with the holes for mounting it to the panels (which also hold the panels together in perfect alignment), and the U-shaped bit that grabs onto the aluminum frame. The render was in black and white because it made it easier to see into the darker areas of the bracket.

 

 

There's one of the brackets, mounted to the panels.

 

 

And finally, here's the aluminum frame being test fit into the brackets. The brackets on the corners have a slightly wider gap to accommodate double-thick aluminum (the ring around the top plus the horizontal supports), and were given holes for riveting to the panels to the frame, making it a more stable build. I decided I actually didn't need to do that, since it would make maintenance and troubleshooting virtually impossible.

 

The frame is spaced far enough away from the panels to avoid any possibility of electrical shorts, and also provides plenty of room for wire management.

 

Once the rest of the brackets are done and the frame is built, the next step is to get all the power run. In the OP I mentioned that there were power concerns running off the PSU's 5v rail. Testing power draw with an external power supply and a Will-a-Watt (yes, I know) show power draw to be much, much lower than the mfg said. I can see a few reasons for this, one of which being that, even though the LEDs were displaying all white in my test, the global brightness may not have been turned up to its max setting. I might mess around with that, just to see what this thing can really do, but since it's going to be a showpiece for the PAX BYOC, and eventually live as my daily driver, I don't want it to be overly obnoxious. So anyway, even though power is probably a non-issue, I went ahead and ordered 6 buck converters to step the 12v power down to 5v. Each one of these should be able to power at least 4 panels, so I figure if I run 2 panels off each one, that should leave plenty of headroom and keep everything cool.

 

 

I'm about to leave for a week-long work trip, so I won't be able to make any progress on this for a little bit, but I'd be happy to answer any questions about it in the mean time.

[star_pilot475]

@FakeGamerGuy if anybody says that isn’t enough RGB, I will personally make sure they disappear. 

[FakeGamerGuy]

Finished building the main cube. Next is the internal framework and power.
(I also need to find a better way to wrap video around the cube; this method got a bit warpy and the edges didn't quite line up)

 

[FakeGamerGuy]

Just got home from my work trip. Got a free different things I can work on but the one I chose first was tl getting buck converters setup so I can start getting the panels' power sorted.

 

So now I can feed 12 colts I into the system and everything will get the 5v it needs. In case I didn't mention it earlier, the reason behind this is because power supplies have almost all of their power available on the 12v rail; 5v only gets like 135-ish watts, is I know is enough, but I want the extra headroom and don't want to sap all of the 5v power and risk my other components getting starved.

[richie30]

Looking awsome

[FakeGamerGuy]

I was originally thinking I would chop up an older ATX case and reuse the back panel from it in this build so the expansion cards would have something to hang on to. I might still do that, but I might also end up ordering this for simplicity. The case I was going to rip apart ended up being a temporary home for my girlfriend's PC so I don't really want to cut it up, even if she doesn't use it and it's getting a new, custom case later anyway lol.

https://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Mods-Modular-I-Panel/dp/B00KJ0T4B2

 

After I got the buck converters dialed to 5.00v I started thinking about how I'm going to connect the wires to it. You can't see it clearly in the previous post, but the power and ground pads have a 1mm through hole, and I'm a little concerned about strength since they're too far apart to use a dual-pin header (which would be suuuuuper preferable). I eventually found some screw terminals that are made to solder into a 1mm pass through. This should give me a good option for my custom sleeved power cables. I ordered 30 from Mouser (6 converters x 4 connectors = 24 + extra), and they should be here on Friday.

 

Edit: Decided to see if I could just design my own mount before I drop $30 on a pre-fabbed bracket or find an old case to cut apart. We'll find out how badly I screwed up in 7 hours.

[FakeGamerGuy]

Ordered some through hole screw terminals to connect power in and out of the buck converters so I have something study and easy to remove. Also picked up a new, hotter soldering gun due to the mass of the items I was soldering. I'm really bad at it but managed to get it done with only very minor burns lol. So far so good. Next up is finding a place to mount the converters and run wires.

[FakeGamerGuy]

The buck converters ended up not working for this project and actually killed an LED board and my controller card. Luckily I had thought ahead and ordered extra panels but I had to source a new controller card.

 

Fast forward, a lot of life stuff came up and I was planning on abandoning the project, but one small detail (my new desk couldn't accommodate a full size ITX case) meant I needed a small-ish PC, so I may as well finish. I've got roughly 3 weeks to get it done before PAX, and I'm moving at the same time, so uh... *stress*

 

Anyway, here's my progress for today's 14 hour sesh. I completely rebuilt the frame since the old one wasn't square. After several days of failed attempts to create a frame by brazing the aluminum I went back to mider cuts, bending, and rivets. The system is mostly mocked up. I still need to figure out where the LED controllers are going to go, and how I want to mount the rear IO shield at the top of the case (if I decide to at all), but from here it's largely creating the final mounts, doing all the wiring, and bending new tube. I'm also considering my Hue+ into the mix because RGB. Also need to do cutouts for wire management.

[FakeGamerGuy]

 Last night I was debating about which power supply cables I wanted to use from my previous builds, and decided on my white and orange ones because they were longer than I needed, so I could cut them down to side pretty easily (still a work in progress), where as most of the green ones would need to be extended, which... No. The both power supplies are 750w Corsair units but this one is slightly smaller, so that helps a lot, too.

 

Today I got new mirror acrylic cut and started building the final floor and mounting panel. I'm the attached images they still have masking tape and protective film, so they don't look like much, but once everything is finished I'll give it *the peel* and it'll be a perfect mirror finish. Aside from cutting them to fit, I also drilled holes for the motherboard to mount, holes for the rear I/O, and holes for the wire passthroughs.

 

I won't be home tomorrow, so Friday and most of the weekend will be dedicated to trying to finish this thing. I need to drill mounting holes for the fans and radiator, finish shortening the PSU cables, build a new dual 8-pin cable for the GPU, do all the data and power wiring for the LEDs, and plumb the water lines. And I guess I should add a power button...

 

Also the cable comb for the 24-pin broke and I'm reaaaaaally not in the mood to put a new one on, but God does it look sloppy now.

[mariushm]

I could have told you those dc-dc converters aren't suitable for this... they're low efficiency (around 80%) and they can only do 1.5-2A without overheating ... and they use fake switching ICs (or xlsemi clones from China)

If you still need here's some good options

 

dc-dc

6$ : 50w : 0.59 ~ 5.1V 10A Out, 4.5V - 13.8V Input, ~92% eff. https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bel-fuse-inc/VRAE-10E1A0G/507-1384-ND/1754625

7.3$ : 66w : Output 0.45 ~ 5.5V 12A 3V - 14.4V Input : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bel-power-solutions/SLDN-12D1ALG/179-3029-ND/8028727

8.5$ 100w 0.69 ~ 5.5V 20A Out, 4.5V - 14V Input : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/bel-power-solutions/SLIN-20E1ALG/179-3035-ND/8028733

12.9$ 100w 1 Output 0.69 ~ 5.5V 20A 4.5V - 14V Input https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/murata-power-solutions-inc/OKL2-T-20-W12P2-C/811-2960-1-ND/4738833

14$ 100w : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/abb-embedded-power/UVT020A0X3-SRZ/555-1257-1-ND/2665528

30$ 200w : 1 Output 0.6 ~ 5V 40A 4.5V - 13.8V Input : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/artesyn-embedded-technologies/SIL40C2-00SADJ-VJ/454-1692-ND/4475014

37$ 400w  94% eff. with 12v in, 1 Output 0.84 ~ 5V 80A 5V - 13.2V Input  https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/delta-electronics/D12S400-A/941-1047-ND/2501319

 

 

19$ ac-dc 90w : https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/mean-well-usa-inc/LRS-100-5/1866-3318-ND/7705010

27$ ac-dc 130w: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/mean-well-usa-inc/RS-150-5/1866-4139-ND/7706174

32$ ac-dc 200w: https://www.digikey.com/product-detail/en/mean-well-usa-inc/LRS-200-5/1866-3337-ND/7705029

 

 

[vogelspinnen]

That looks pretty darn cool mate. Looking forward to see it finished up!

[FakeGamerGuy]

More holes, more progress. Made solid progress today but I'm too tired to type out a whole update on my phone, so I'll post a more comprehensive update with tomorrow's update.

[FakeGamerGuy]

Mid-day update. Finished the chassis, pained it in truck bed liner, played Ace Attorney while it cured, peeled the plastic film on the acrylic, then reassembled for hopefully the last time. Had some issues test fitting the LED panels, but after resolving the clearance issues it slipped right on. Now I need to find the PSU wiring, Hue+, and connect all the LED panels' power and data connections, and bend all the water lines. Also trying to decide how I want to mount the 2-way mirror side panel. I'm thinking maybe adhesive magnets? I just don't want to take it all apart again just to drill a few holes.

[Asad Javeed]

Man, that's rad......

[FakeGamerGuy]

Decided that it wasn't worth the time, money, or mental exhaustion to modify all my custom PSU cables, so I used my stock black ones which, aside from the GPU cables, is virtually invisible.

 

After fighting a recurring leak that was caused by an O-ring going missing, the system is up and running. One photo shows the 2-way mirror acrylic side panel with all the LEDs off, except for the rings on the fans (which can't be turned off), and the other shows with the LEDs at full brightness. I was really worried the mirror wouldn't be transparent enough with the LEDs on, but I'm feeling much better now.

 

Edit: here's a video.

[FakeGamerGuy]

Ran into a lot of annoying issues today but uh... It's damn near finished.

 

Sorry for covering the microphone when I moved the camera but that's not really the point

[FakeGamerGuy]

 

[Exotath]

Incredible build. Well done!

[NotABigGamer]

wow i like the lights!

[FakeGamerGuy]

Wrapping video around the cube is cool land all but the whole purpose was to create my own 3D content. This was a test of adding depth effects to the to the top panel, which is by far the hardest one because of the relatively extreme angle it's viewed at.