Parts
For this tutorial, we will show you how to make a very simple mid-range housing we call the “Basic Circular Housing”
Parts for Basic Circular Housing
- PCBs (ideally 2 or 4)
- 18awg solid core wire (red and black)
- 20x20 aluminum profile (15cm long)
- Circular Plexiglass tube, 6.5cm diameter (make sure transparent to UV) (10cm long)
- Laser cut acrylic Top and Bottom lid
- Cable Ties (Basic nylon high heat resistant) (Preferably very thin)
- (optional) Silicone heat transmitting pads
- (optional) DC barrel jack (socket and plug)
- (optional) Electronic Snap connectors
Tools Needed
- Hot Glue Gun (Or epoxy)
- Wire Strippers
- Saw (if needing to cut housing tube or metal)
Core Component Overview
A mothbeam is easy to put together and has 3 main parts:
- PCB
- The electronic LED board that shines really bright (generally UV or Visible Options)
- generally made on alumnimum backing to help shed heat. (Copper could work too, but it’s expensive!)
- Heatsink
- usually a piece of metal to help dissipate the heat to give the LEDs a longer life
- Housing
- Something to protect the electronics from travel or the elements
PCB
The PCB’s are a certified open source hardware design originally by Moritz. We have remixed them to easily connect to our Mothbox PCB.
To get one, you can:
- order a Mothbeam directly from Moritz in Germany emailing him (moritz@lablab.eu)
- use the open source files to create your own PCBs yourself (or via something like JLCPCB) (remember they need to be aluminum PCBs)
- order them from something like circuithub (the most expensive way)
Heatsink
The heatsink just needs to be something big and metal we can connect the PCB to.
Housing
The flexibility of this low cost device means you can put together different types of housings however you need.
You can go super low-cost and just put it in a recycled sports-drink bottle
or you can laser cut a fancier flat-pack design
you can even use the basic concepts in this tutorial and make a “Mega Mothbeam” by just using more PCBs and longer heatsink.