Big Size WS2812B That Glows | Make ARGB LED at Home

Hello people in this instructables i have some unusual project, The reason for saying unusual is because you have never seen such giant LED!

I cant just simply say this as LED because unlike regular light emitting diodes, this is not limited to just one color.

This is an ARGB led that stands for an addressable light emitting diode which means the colors can be addressed individually that enables the user to generate over 16miilion color combinations.

Yeah! You are hearing this right and i wanted to take the regular/tiny argb led diode to a whole new level so i came up with this idea.

This can be connected to any programmable microcontroller and the color requirement can be programmed, How cool is this.

I have given a detailed explanation on how you can build this, I recommend you to make this so that you can show it off to your friends and also this can be your desktop gadget that emits personalized colors that improve the aesthetics of the living space

Supplies

Empty cardboard

White sheets of paper(prefered drawing papers)

Aluminum foil

Strip of ARGB LED

Ruler for measurement

Piece of plastic lid

Hot glue

Paper glue

Soldering iron and lead

Jumper wires

Arduino board and IDE

Programming cable

Power bank

Wire cutter

Step 1: LED Case

The first thing here is how big you want the size of RGB LED, in my case the size larger than your both hands combined is a good idea.

Well the size is dependent on the factor of the available materials, If you make it very big the challenge comes in powering the LED and hence in my case the ideal size is what i have chosen and you can see that in this step.

To begin with make a note of the measurement from the LED and make a note on the paper, Now multiply them with the number you wish to make it big, suppose the side of LED is 5mm you can make it 100mm that would be 20 times larger than the original size.

Make the side part by cutting the strips of cardboard and then pasting the white shite of paper, Here select only white because it reflects the maximum amount of light thereby making the LED light brighter.

Cut the marking as per the measurement and now we can head over to adding the light.

Step 2: Arranging LED

I cut the LED strip into 3 pieces and each piece had 4 LED that makes 12 as a whole, Now these cut pieces need to be joined together.

To join these strip i will use piece of wires that were already stripped and here you need to make sure that the inside of wire is made from copper.

I will take some time to solder all these since we are using triangle shape, Finally secure the soldered areas with hot glue and allow to dry completely.

Step 3: Plastic Surface

The light coming from the LED will be sharp and will not look bright, To fix this issue we need a softer light and the medium.

Plastic serves as a diffuser source in our project, You can't use clear plastic here at least some blurred plastic will do the job.

Mark as per the measurement you have taken on a scale and cut it accordingly.

After you have the diffuser glue it to the square case that will serve as a lid on top of the LED body later.

Secure the sides with hot glue and make sure that the glue is not too hot so that it might disfigure the plastic and make it not fit for using.

Step 4: Connecting to Microcontroller

The connections are really simple like the regular LED this also has 3 pins Gnd, 5v and the Di

Simply connect the 5v and Gnd pins to the 5v and gnd pin of the Nano board, if you are using the Uno board the connections will be the same too.

You can upload the program now, I have given the code that i will be using to run this LED and you can use my program .

Download them first and open them on Arduino IDE, select the proper type of board first and then the com port, Now you can upload the code to board.

As soon as this is done you should see the lights from the strip, If that is not working then you need to recheck the soldered connections and fix the problem.

After you have all the lights glowing we can assemble it to the body.

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Step 5: Finishing

To finish this and make it look and work like a real RGB LED there are 2 things.

One is the diffisued light and the second one being the base plate that covers up the diode, To begin with to make the diffuser i made a note of the plate that will fit on the top plate.

Marked them on the piece of plastic and later cut it using scissors, Do this carefully as you might crack the plastic sheet.

After this is complete glue this top layer over the LED body using hot glue, To make the side holders i choose thin strips of cardboard, Apply paper glue evenly on the surface and place the foil.

Once the foil is dry you can trim of the excess foil and keep this pieces aside, repeat same for all other 3 pieces also.

Now this entire setup will be placed on a larger sized cardboard plate and secured with hot glue, now we are almost done the only thing pending now is adding the side pins and we can see that in the next step.

Step 6: How to Use

Point to be noted here the silver lines resemble the side pin of the SMD LED and made of aluminum foil that can conduct power, But there will be a lot of resistance and the pins cant be assigned properly.

Considering this point I made a separate wire that can be connected to the arduino board directly.

Connect the pins to the Arduino Nano or Uno and connect the board to any USB power supply via cable, You should see the LED glow.

This works best like the real small argb LED but a larger version of it, You can also program the LED, This is a very cool project and the best desk gadget to light up your mood.

That was all about making this big ARGB led at your house. Hope you will give a try to make this in your spare time.

Step 7: Video Tutorial

If you feel you missed something you can watch this video tutorial, I have also shown the working of this project inside this video.

There are multiple uses for this big LED! You can also make several of these and use to decorate your house for different occasions, The choice is left to you.