I am working on a bluetooth speaker with integrated 16x16 WS2812 matrix. My current design is to have the speaker box fully enclosed. However, I’m starting to worry about heat, since the back of the matrix seems to be getting hot.
The box is a combination of solid maple, MDF, and plywood. I need this to be safe because it is a gift for a friend’s child. Do you think there is a risk of fire having the LED matrix in a fully enclosed structure? If so, will adding some vents for passive cooling be enough? Or do I need to throw a small 5V fan into the speaker?
Also, I was planning to mount the LED matrix on a piece of wood that would be moved forward and away from the diffuser to vary the amount of diffusion. However, I’m starting to wonder if mounting directly to wood is safe (fan or no fan). Should I use a piece of aluminum to mount it to help diffuse the heat?
just for fun, here you can see what a difference moving the LEDs about 10mm makes. I’m pretty excited about the idea of focusing/de-focusing the LEDs mechanically with a knob to get different looks
Looks fantastic! Great idea! I’ve been thinking about trying this myself. I’ve done a lot of audio responsive projects, but never with integrated speakers.
Seems like it would be good to experiment with different cooling techniques. Get a cheap infrared thermometer or, even better, integrate a digital temperature sensor inside. I’m sure mounting to a metal plate would help greatly, and passive cooling vents are probably a good idea.
If your max brightness is 255, you should also test reducing that to maybe 180 and see if that’s more comfortable heat wise. The overall display will probably still be bright enough.
Passive cooling with some little vent holes would be good and shouldn’t be too hard to add.
Love the diffusion in the first video. Fun project.
Yea, I’m bumping the power down – actually the hottest thing is the step-down converter needed to drop a line from the bluetooth amp down to 5V for the LEDs and Arduino Mega.
I decided to put a 5V fan in there just to be safe, which will automatically come on when the LEDs are turned on.
