Minor Update

This is a small update to reassure people that the project isn't dead.

I've finished the next batch of 12 LED segments, so that brings the grand total to 100!!
This tops 40%.

Yay milestones.

More soldering and gluing

Soldering
12 more (2") LED triplets soldered. 88 done, 152 to go. The 2" sections were kinda tricky, because the wire length was so small and the heatshrink tubing needed to be a certian length just to go over everthing properly. I ended up having to rearrange a few steps in the process to get everything assembled correctly.


Gluing (a.k.a. Construction)
I cut and glued 4 more pieces to the outside of the 1st module. They were all 3"x5.5" pieces. That leaves another 10 pieces on the outside zig-zag part left to cut and apply. For this module, I also need to make room for the battery pack, so I have to extend the bottom side pieces an extra bit, plus have a second long piece on the bottom. The exact dimensions are yet to be determined (I haven't been ambitious enough to sit down and do the measurements). It involves angles and what-not so it's not entirely nontrivial (yay double negatives! Me fail english? That's unpossible!).

Parts
I also ordered 170 2x2 connector housings (sockets) and 500 crimp connectors. The connectors weighed in at a whopping $1.28 each, so the total order ended up being over $250 for just those items (the crimp connectors are very cheap).

This last Digikey order put me near $5k ($4.8k). Lots more to come in that department though. Yet another milestone, I guess. Or something.
*watches as his wallet bleeds more*

Construction and Parts

Construction
Over Memorial Day weekend, I got some decent progress made on the construction. I got one of the long 3" external pieces cut and managed to attach it and two of the shorter pieces to the wall. These pieces are 1/8" marker board, so when two modules are abutted, the common pixel separation will be 1/4", which is what the inter-pixel divisions are in a single module.
I used Liquid Nailz to attach them to the wall, as 1/4" is far too thin to attach anything using nails or screws and I'm not sure how the marker board would hold up to a lot of drilling and pounding. It's holding up well so far, as I've used the Liquid Nailz as basically cement, and I went back in and filled in all the joints with even more.

I also drilled and slotted the remaining 60 holes needed for the LED cables. This went really quick, because I could use the previous 60 holes as a guide.

Parts
With all this progress comes even more parts ordering. I ran out of 1/8" heatshrink tubing, so I bought another 60' of that, as well as some caulk, more Liquid Nailz (used above), and some clear Liquid Nailz, in case the clear caulk doesn't work too well in attaching the LEDs to the wall. I also ordered and, today, received 525 more LEDs from SuperBrightLEDs. I ordered 175 of each color, along with the 90 I already have (about 10 were used as "engineering samples"), should leave me with enough to complete the project and a few left over in case I screw something up.

I will need to order some more 2x2 socket headers and some more 4-conductor wire soon as well, as I am quite short on what I need.