“This is my RGB LED Sphere project, it certainly is not the first, but I had to have one & all the crowd funded attempts failed so I decided to build one myself.
There are 16 slices total & two circular PCB’s at the top & bottom where all the slices fit into. Each slice contains 19 WS2812 “NeoPixel” digitally addressable LED’s per slice for a grand total of 304 RGB LED’s per sphere.
The sphere is controlled by a single slice that contains an Atmega328, the same MCU as an Arduino Uno. The control slice also contains an accelerometer, Lithium Ion booster/charger, and a push button to switch between animations.
Each slice has an 3 inputs & an 3 outputs, (5V, GND, LED SIGNAL), each slice connecting to the next. It starts with the control slice’s output that connects to the next slices input. The process continues until all the slices are connected.
The sphere is powered by a 3.7V 2200MaH 18650 Li-Po battery, that connects to a booster/charger circuit from SparkFun. I am having trouble with it though, even when off, power is being consumed & I haven’t found a solution just yet.
I have been experimenting with multiple MCU’s (Teensy 3.2 & ESP32), but I haven’t published those just yet. The nice thing is you can swap out control slices to give the sphere more or less functionality.
A word of warning, this isn’t a beginner project, it assumes you already have some SMD experience & know your way around a soldering iron.”