Diy PcbMood Lamp!! Pcbway!!

Hello Pcbwayer

It's a great piece of artwork. Getting inspired by it, even I wanted to make something like that. But this one was way out of my league. I decided to take one step at a time and made a way smaller version of LED Cube as a Mood Lamp. It can be a good starting point to learn about the hardware, which are mostly LEDs and microcontrollers, and software to control them (creating animations)

Things You will Need

96x WS2812 LEDs

6x PCBs

1x Arduino Nano

1x 5V/1A Power Supply

he plan is to make a mood lamp. I wanted to keep it simple and so I decided to go with the popular WS2812 Individually Addressable LEDs. The LEDs are connected in cascade which means that you can control as many LEDs you want by just one signal line/wire from the microcontroller. This makes wiring a lot easy...

PCB Designing

You can use any software you like for designing PCBs. I am using EasyEDA as it is suitable for newbies like me. I have attached the schematic and PCB files.

LED has 4 pins:

VDD - 5V
DOUT - Signal Out
VSS - Ground
DIN - Signal In

As mentioned earlier, the LEDs are connected in cascade which means that the signal comes IN from the microcontroller to the 1st LED at the DIN pin. From DOUT pin, the signal goes to the DIN pin of the 2nd LED.

While designing the PCBs, I had thought of hand soldering the LEDs and so I have kept sufficient space between the LEDs for the soldering iron to reach the pads. But later, as you will see, I went with reflow soldering with my makeshift setup since this method is quick and neat (and satisfying to watch) if done correctly.

Once you have completed designing the PCB, get it fabricated from the manufacturer of your choice. I chose pcbway.com because of its quick service.

Assembling the PCBs

At first, I started hand soldering the LEDs one by one. The result was not good and the LEDs were getting overheated which is not a good sign. Also, it is a time-consuming process and soldering 96 LEDs will require a lot of time.

The most widely used method to solder SMD components is called Reflow Soldering. In this method, solder paste (a mixture of solder and flux) is applied to the pads on the PCB and the components are placed on it. The solder paste is then made to melt or 'reflow' by heating it in a reflow oven. This is a quick and neat method if done correctl