I'll bet there's some creative board layout so that the relevant controller IC and supporting passives can be soldered onto the back of one of the 5, then have solder jumpers or some such to actually connect it into the circuit. That way, you're not adding miles of unused trace to an active bus.
replyOf course, having a 5x PCB fab, but 4x+1 assembly would probably double the cost for a single turn of the device.
I would love to hear more about the process of making 5-fold symmetry work for board layout. That sounds maddening to get right.
As long as you can design the outline as a vector file somewhere else, it's easy enough to import as a board outline and then lay out on top of it. I also get the lure of assembly these days, but I would hand-solder a board like this for a one-off art project. Call me old fashioned, but I'm confident enough with soldering that I'd estimate a couple of hours to assemble and I like buying domestic which is less economical than the JLPCB special. If people started to ask for kits though...
replyI think your idea is pretty sound if you connect all but one of the boards in a ring and use a jumper for the control section.
I could go either way on hand-soldering a single assembly. But doing this more than once would be torturous.
replyI can only go so many days carefully monitoring diet and minimizing stimulant intake to minimize associated tremors. And I don't have rework microscope, so my eyes would definitely suffer.
> do yourself a massive favor and let the PCB fab also assemble the LEDs
replyFrom the article:
What's next? ...using PCB assembly...
I don't agree with this. The board and components are trivial to hand solder.
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