3/19/2026 10:08 PM - CAD PT.1 ; Designing the grid

08-03-2026

The grid

Today, I started by making the grid, which will be one of the most important parts of this project, as it will be responsible for giving the matrix its unique look, and preventing color bleeding between the LEDs.

I got inspired by this tutorial, and downloaded his STL file to get some inspiration.

Since my row and column pixel count is a multiple of 5, I decided to divide the whole grid into 5*5 segmets. This will make it best for 3D Printing and assembly later-on.

Before starting the design, I had to think about the plate on which I'll lay down the strips. The guy in the video used an aluminium plate, but that's too expensive. And the tape he had to put between the plate and the strips for insulation ruins the heat resistance idea in my opinion.

After a bit of thinking, I decided to mount everything on a laser-cut MDF wood plate. They seem pretty able to handle the heat, especially thick plates like 5mm.

I also didn't want tu use glue between grid segments like he did since it might make the gap between them thicker than expected and pretty random. Instead I decided to make space to mount them each one individually on the wood plate.

With that decided, I hopped on Solidworks and made the first prototype of the grid.
I put some dimensions that made the entire thing beautiful in my opinion, and most importantly functional.
I made the entire thing smaller in length and width to compensate for any 3D Printing tolerence and not have problems when mounting them.

I lofted the pixel walls. I first tried making a curve that would make the reflection better, but since I had to draw the exact same curve sketches twice for the inner and outer walls, and those aren't very straight-forward to define, I ditched them and lofted normally.

I then filleted the insides of the pixel chambers to get a more even reflection an better-looking lighting.

After looking back at the design, I noticed that the LED chamber walls were quite thick, 1.27mm which was a bit thicker than 2 walls in the slicer. And since these don't need to be as strong, and one wall for each chamber is enough to block light bleed, I went back and made them 0.6mm thick, exactly the thickness of a 3D printed wall.

Then came the time to make the screw holes and pillars, and the conduits for the wires.

I started by making the pillars flush with the back exterior wall of the segment, and then made a hole 1.5mm thick for M2 screws to mount directly.

But when I started making the conduits for the wiring, I realized that my design wasn't actually going to work. I don't know how thick the wires are, nor how they will be placed. So I opened the guy's design in Solidworks, and saw that he made the pixel chambers thicker than the segment itself. So I did just that, and adjusted every dimension accordingly.

I also tried to roughly measure the diameter I should leave to house the pixels using a ruler and an old strip segment I have, and entered it. But since there is a capacitor near the pixel, I think that I will design a small sample of the grid to see if it clears before printing the actual big segments.

And since now the segments will be mounted on the plate with the screw pillars and pixel chambers pushing down, I went back and made the thickness of those walls 1.2mm, meaning 2 3D printed walls.

3/19/2026 10:12 PM - CAD PT.2 ; The Mounting Plate

08-03-2026

The mounting plate

This time, I designed the laser-cut MDF plate on which everything will be mounted.

I made it exactly flush with the grid segments.
I also made the holes needed to mount the grid segmets on it.

Assembly

After getting the plate ready, I made a new assembly and mounted all 24 segmets on it.

It was quite a painful process as each plate needed to have 3 mates.

My PC also didn't like the process with only 8GB of RAM. When I imported all 24 segments, problems started to appear. So I hid all of them, and only show and position 4 at a time and then hide them to proceed with the next ones.

Next time, I will be making the diffusers !

3/19/2026 10:15 PM - CAD Pt.3 ; Adjusting the dimensions and making the diffusers

15-03-2026

Adjusting the size

Upon further thinking, I decided to reduce the size and resolution of the matrix.

So I adjusted the mounting plate and removed the extra diffuser segments.

Now the matrix's resolution is 20x15, with the overal dimensions of 33x25 cm

Making the diffusers

It is now time to make the diffuser to evenly diffuse the lights.

I didn't really think of how they should be made. So I spent some time on the internet to find a solution.

I thought of a white polypropylene sheet, but these can't really be found in Tunisia.

I then thought of using white acrylic but this can be very expensive.

I thought of transparent acrylic and then glue a sheet of baking paper, but this is also pretty expensive and difficult to make since the matrix has 300 individual pixels.

At first, I didn't want to 3D print the diffusers because this might result in the printing lines being obvious and ruining the diffusion. But then I saw someone on YouTube who 3D printed pretty thick diffusers, and they worked really well.

So I hopped on Solidworks and extruded squares a bit larger than the light ouputs on the grid segments to be able to house the diffusers.

I then made the diffuser units 0.15mm smaller than the matching squares on the grids for tolerence.

I started laying down some diffusers to see how things would turn out, and it looks good !

And since laying down 300 different objects can be very painful, especially since they are just for looks in this assembly to see how the matrix would turn out, I made a big diffuser test model as big as the grid and placed it in the assembly to see how the entire thing will turn out.

It is amazing ! :)

Adjusting grid wall thickness

I fired up Creality Print and Orca Slicer to check what is the default wall thickess. I found that it is set to 0.42mm for the outer walls, and 0.45 for the inner walls by default, so I went to adjust the wall thickness of the grids accordingly. So now the cylinder walls are 1.29mm thick

3/22/2026 1:34 AM - CAD Pt.4 ; How should it be mounted

16-03-2026

LED installation guides

I had to think of a way that would reliably indicate the positions where the LED strips should be mounted.

And since I'll be laser-cutting the mounting plate, I decided to engrave small patterns that would help me accurately position the strips.

I went with very thin likes that would go above each strip, with a cutout in the middle to indicate the center position.

I didn't add bottom guides to minimize the time the machine spends engraving it, hence minimize the cost.

Making a mounting solution

Now that the diffusers are made, it is time to make place for the electronics and think of a way to mount this matrix to a wall.

At first, I was thinking of making a small housing beneath the matrix to house the electronics and power supply. But this didn't seem very practical as I would have to design it in a refined way so that it doesn't ruin the look of the matrix. This would also limit my freedom in routing the wires... due to the tight space it would have.

I then spent a lot of time thinking about how I should cleanly place the electronics and mount it to the wall without the need for drilling, and it was pretty difficult to figure it out.

I then decided to add another wooden plate behind the LED mounting plate, place the electronics between the 2 plates, and use the back plate for mounting to the wall.

I am thinking about mounting it using those small hooks that should be hammered to the wall.

I also had to think about how I should space these 2 plates, and where to put the screws since the strips occupy most of the mounting plate.

I decided to go with 3D Printed spacers that would go on all 4 sides of the matrix.

I started designing a simple spacer with space for nuts to reduce the length of the screws.

I then proceeded to make according holes in both plates, but I realized that this design would result in screws going through the strips. A mistake that I gladly found later.

So I ditched this idea, and went with corner spacers instead.

This time, I verified that the screws will be clear of the strips, and that the heads of the screws will be in the gaps of the grid segments.

Here is how the entire thing looks like now :

Small pillars

I went to re-check the grid segments, and I decided to add small pillars on the edges to minimize warping when 3D Printing.

3/22/2026 1:35 AM - CAD Pt.5 ; Some Rectifications

16-03-2026

Added more spacers

Immediately after writing the previous journal, I realized my mistake regarding the basic spacers' positions.

And after taking a closer look at the assembly, I decided to add 2 of these spacers on the top and bottom.

So I made some adjustments and made new holes to add these spacers.

I decided to add them because I didn't think that 4 screws, one on each corner, are really enough to hold the whole matrix together in a sturdy way.

But also, I hesitated on wether I should really add these or not, as they would take up space that could've been used for the electronics. But I am only going to have a mid-sized power supply and some small modules, so I should be fine.

3/22/2026 1:37 AM - CAD Pt. 6 ; Wall Brackets

18-03-2026

Making the wall brackets

I did not want to make the wall mounting holes directly in the back MDF plate since 5mm is pretty thick and the hooks on the wall might not grip it.

So I decided to make some 3D printed hooks behind the back plate to be able to simply mount the matrix to the wall.

I made them wide to have some margins when attaching the hooks to the wall.

I then added them to the assembly.

Adjusting the guide patterns

When I made the guide patterns for the strips on the mounting plate, I didn't know how thick I should make them for the machine to only do one pass.

I did some research, and I found that I can make them 0.001mm thick, a lot thinner than what the laser machine is capable of doing, but enough for the machine's software to see. This way, I can garantee that the machine will only do one pass over it and engrave a very thin line.

With this modification, I decided to engrave 2 lines for each strip for more precise guidance and to make the guides easier to understand.

3/22/2026 10:53 PM - CAD Pt. 7 ; Almost There !

22-03-2026

Making an enclosure.

I did not like how the spacers looked like, and their positions didn't make a lot of sense.

So I decided to make a full enclosure between the front plate and the mounting plate.

I figured that I'll need to divide the whole enclosure into 4 main parts. I could do 2, but that would end up leaving only 10mm on each side of the Creality HI's build plate, and I didn't want prints this large.

I initially thought about making some interlocking mechanisms between every 2 parts, but since the enclosure parts will be screwed to both plates in position, that won't be necessary.

So I started by making the first corner with 5mm walls, but I added some large fillets inside to make it sturdier.

I also left space for a screwdriver to be able to screw in the grid segmets, since they have to be mounted after the enclosure parts.

Then I proceeded by making the holes in both plates, and I had to slightly move the wall brackets to be able to screw them in.

I also took the opportunity to make a power cable guide directly inside both of the bottom corner parts.

Here is how everything turned out :

Now the CAD is almost done. The only thing left to do is making an opening for the microphone.

3/22/2026 10:53 PM - CAD Pt. 7 ; Almost There !

22-03-2026

Making an enclosure.

I did not like how the spacers looked like, and their positions didn't make a lot of sense.

So I decided to make a full enclosure between the front plate and the mounting plate.

I figured that I'll need to divide the whole enclosure into 4 main parts. I could do 2, but that would end up leaving only 10mm on each side of the Creality HI's build plate, and I didn't want prints this large.

I initially thought about making some interlocking mechanisms between every 2 parts, but since the enclosure parts will be screwed to both plates in position, that won't be necessary.

So I started by making the first corner with 5mm walls, but I added some large fillets inside to make it sturdier.

I also left space for a screwdriver to be able to screw in the grid segmets, since they have to be mounted after the enclosure parts.

Then I proceeded by making the holes in both plates, and I had to slightly move the wall brackets to be able to screw them in.

I also took the opportunity to make a power cable guide directly inside both of the bottom corner parts.

Here is how everything turned out :

Now the CAD is almost done. The only thing left to do is making an opening for the microphone.