Connection Machine II Case Mod.

[looney]

I have uploaded a WIP version to the SketchUp 3D warehouse for those of you who wish to view it:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=u79aedb63-31c9-420a-9759-2559f8b1e477

[ungreedy]

I have uploaded a WIP version to the SketchUp 3D warehouse for those of you who wish to view it:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=u79aedb63-31c9-420a-9759-2559f8b1e477

that thing looks sweet!

 

I tried using sketchup many of times and the only thing I could make is a headache. 

[looney]

LED Matrix Panels: 

 

The rest of the LED panels arrived, I bought them from adafruit.com:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/420

 

Here are some close ups:

 

 

 

 

I have also made a SketchUp template for them if anyone is interested in using these panels in their own case mode:

https://3dwarehouse.sketchup.com/model.html?id=u25e14ada-841f-4a53-9cca-2857d8cc6788

[looney]

Arduino Controller-boards:

 

To control the pannels I will use a arduino based controller that I also got from adafruit.

https://www.adafruit.com/products/1072

 

They come unassembled so I have some soldering to do:

 

 

 

Here are all 8 finished:

 

 

 

 

 

To program them I also bought 8 USB to 232 serial boards, also from adafruit:

https://www.adafruit.com/products/284

 

 

 

Next up is connecting them all to a central 16 amp / 5 volt power-supply.

When the PSU is in I will also look into getting a 9th arduino and connecting all the pannel arduino's to that central arduino using a I²C bus.

This way I only need to interface with 1 arduino in order to turn the panels on or off and run different programs on them.

 

 

In the meantime I have also made some progress on the SketchUp drawing for the case itself and I should soon be able to send them out to get a few parts water or lasercut.

[X_Rated_Box]

Nice Love to see this concept come to life

[looney]

Nice Love to see this concept come to life

Me to

PS: I hope to have this done before september so I can bring it to a LAN party in september

[X_Rated_Box]

YOu are going to be the king of this LAN! seriously:D

 

-snipie-

[hearthofsin]

nice. did you check if they all worked? i always get a couple of the solderings soldered togheter so my circuit dosn't work. i think i have to shaky hands for that stuff but it is pretty fun and usually i can repair what i've failed.

very cool i can't wait to see more updates ! 
oh also do you have any specs yet? what are you going to put inside the beauty?

[looney]

YOu are going to be the king of this LAN! seriously:D

It's a LAN with more then a thousand participants, I doubt It will stand out.

come to thing of it, it will also be standing in the crew area which is off limits to participants

nice. did you check if they all worked? i always get a couple of the solderings soldered togheter so my circuit dosn't work. i think i have to shaky hands for that stuff but it is pretty fun and usually i can repair what i've failed.

very cool i can't wait to see more updates ! 

oh also do you have any specs yet? what are you going to put inside the beauty?

Not yet, I have visually inspected my soldering though.

Once the power supply is in I will hook them all up and program them.

As far as the guts are concerned, I honestly don't have a clue.

I'm leaving a lot of space open for that and I'm making sure that it's somewhat modular.

I plan to first start working on the case and then I will try to maybe get some sponsors to help out with the hardware as the case itself will already cost a fortune.

The nice thing about my design is that all the hardware can simply slide out of the case so the actual platform that holds the hardware is not a crucial part of the case itself.

[multifrag]

Not really sure what was the reason behind 8 separate re-programmable controller boards when you could just write instructions on one chip. Would be cheaper and take less space. Don't forget to clean flux after soldering as it can eat into pcb if it is one of the cheaper ones.

[looney]

Not really sure what was the reason behind 8 separate re-programmable controller boards when you could just write instructions on one chip. Would be cheaper and take less space. Don't forget to clean flux after soldering as it can eat into pcb if it is one of the cheaper ones.

Sadly a single arduino is not fast enough to properly support chaining of these panels.

A alternative would have been to get a FPGA.

Also, according to the manufacturer they used no-clean flux.