FlexLED

This year I went a little overboard with a super geeky Valentine's day gift! 🤓 

This is the design video for FlexLED 2.0! I tried to log the design process from start to finish. Starting from the initial idea, architecture design, selection of components, schematic design, pcb design, mechanical design and finally ordering the new flexi rigid pcb!

The open source gerber files for the first FlexLED prototype are now posted on the project page! The PCB is very simple as this was only intended to proof the concept. It consist from the coil, the footprint for the APFA2507LSURKSYKZGKC LED package and the six pads (3 back-to-back) to pass power through the coil and LED.

POV displays are usually made from a pcb that have multiple Leds on it and that is connected to the shaft of a motor that rotates 360 degrees. The challenging part of this is to pass power and control signals to the rotating PCB. This is usually done via slip rings and carbon brushes. 

The neat part about this FlexLED project is that the PCB itself can generate the a flapping motion and create persistence of vision. It main disadvantage is its limiting angle which is currently set to around 120deg. But it eliminates the need of a motor which makes things simpler and cheaper. 

For example the total BOM of the first prototype is $2 which only consists from a flexible PCB and one LED (at 100pcs). This exclude the magnet and the other electronics needed to power the thing. But to generate this type of motion you would usually need a brushless motor which will add at least $10 to the total cost. 

Project FlexLED is an attempt to create a simple POV display from flexible PCBs! The video bellow shows my first basic prototype with just one LED. 

My camera has not done much justice to this project, in real-life it looks amazing. The results are very promising, so in the video I also discussed the challenges of how can I add more LEDs.

Thank you PCBWay for providing me with these flexible PCBs!