That was definitely a joke. A PCB that size would definitely be cost prohibitive. However, if you were interested in selling something I would suggest a kit where you just provide the LED strips and a pre-programmed Cerb40 or Trinket and instructions and a pattern for cutting out the background and assembling. The corrugated sign board used for yard signs would be an excellent cheap material that could be easily cut with a box knife or even heavy duty scissors.
Good thinking on the inexpensive material. If I wanted to offer this as a kit, I could always get a bunch of blanks machined from something like that. There’s a local hackerspace starting up here in my area, though the cost seems quite steep (they’re asking for $100/mo. plus two hours volunteer time for members). Is that typical for hackerspaces?
our hackerspace has a casual membership for those people who aren’t going to visit weekly (or however often you need to, to consider yourself a “more permanent fixture”). It’s $10/day.
Just finished the first pass at updated code for the Star, using the FEZ Spider to run it. Just a couple of simple ring patterns and a rotating line pattern, plus I added the Tunes module to make it that much more festive.
Below are a couple of pics of the (semi) finished product. I used Scotch brand restickable tabs to mount the Spider and modules to the back of the PVC sheet. Given the shape of the underside of the Spider, I had to double up on the tabs for that. Will be interesting to see how it holds up hanging in the window.
Here’s a video of the updated project in action:
[video=vimeo]115228662
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You need to find a way to attach this to a bottom of a quadcopter and fly it around the neighborhood. The UFO reports will start flooding in 
Pete
Don’t give me any ideas. Particularly given that the FAA has offices nearby… :whistle:
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I think that would basically be an LED lit hexacopter 
That’s actually not a bad deal once you start figuring what it costs to operate a hackerspace. We had one in Nashville for a while that only cost $40/month but they could only offer that because they had a sweetheart deal on the building but once that deal disappeared so did the hackerspace. I’ve had several folks approach me about helping to start up another one and without huge sponsorships or being in a much bigger city, I don’t see how any hacker/maker space can stay alive without charging upwards of $200/member per month. I personally would never pay that unless I lived downtown in an apartment and had no other options.
But, if you wanted to get that stuff cut I would go to a sign shop. Most of them have laser cutters these days and would be glad to cut them out for you if you provided the design file. I have a buddy here that has a laser and would also cut for you. He charges an insanely cheap hourly rate to run the equipment.
The view from outside:
[video=vimeo]115302607
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What a great way to spend the holidays. Now make it dance to some music 
That’s what this video showed:
https://www.ghielectronics.com/community/forum/topic?id=17734&page=3#msg176622
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@ devhammer - fantastic
OK, so I’ve gone from the bulky PVC prototypes to a more svelte and much nicer laser-cut acrylic-backed version, thanks to a little help from @ Gary and crew (1st photo).
But that still left all that awful wiring showing. So I started thinking…what if I could turn this into a Gadgeteer module?
With a little help from some of the usual suspects (@ Justin, @ ianlee74, @ Archtect, et. al.), I came up with a workable design for a PCB (2nd and 3rd pics are 3D sketchup renders). Had to shrink the size down greatly in order to keep the PCB cost reasonable, but still managed to put 13 RGB LEDs on it (down from 19 on the prototype).
Boards arrived today, and the last several pics are the bare and assembled boards (I hand-soldered the first board today…the rest I’m planning to reflow using an oven or hot air).
Aside from a couple of solder joints I missed the first time around, and some confusion on my part with which SPI channel is available on Cobra II’s socket 6, the star worked great. Here’s a video of the first fully-working test:
The point of all this is to once again express my wonder and gratitude at this awesome community, and the platform we have to work with. Thanks to both of these, I was able to go from an idea, to prototypes, to a working module on a PCB in just a few short weeks, in my spare time. What a blessing it is to live in an era where creating new gadgets is within our reach.
My continued gratitude to all of the folks who’ve helped me along the way. This is a great community, and I’m glad to be a part of it.
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Hey, in about 300 days we can have a very FEZ Christmas! That’s the first thing it reminded me of; the star that goes on a tree.
You mean a very merry FEZtivus!
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Great job, Devhammer!
@ devhammer - nice work and demo
@ kiwi_stu, @ ianlee74 - Thanks, gents! It’s been a fun process. Took me a while to get back up to speed with Eagle, but it seems to be a little easier the second time building a module. Of course, I still need to write a proper driver, but that usually takes a bit.