Build one from scratch.

On the board↻Replay

Seven lines. Everything you solder is through-hole.

Order by part number, from Mouser, DigiKey or anywhere with the same one. Open a line to see its number.

Off the board↻Replay

A panel, screws, a cable, a power bank.

Buy the LED panel by its listing, not a part number: the case is measured around the one linked below. It comes with its ribbon and power cable.

Another panel? Its driver IC decides, not “HUB75E” in the title. S-PWM “video wall” panels stay completely dark, and no firmware fixes that.

On the bench

And the tools.

Tick them off as you find them.

Budget and time

Order first, build later.

Budget US$100–200. Take $100 as the floor, not the estimate: shipping, minimum order quantities and a reprint or two add up.

~2 weeks

for the parts to arrive

~10 h

of printing

~1 h

of soldering and assembly

The board↻Replay

Order the v3.9 board.

The PCBWay shared project needs no upload, and ordering through it supports Patternflow. Any fab works too: upload the v3.9 Gerber zip. JLCPCB tends to be the cheapest.

v3.x only. The v2.1 board is a different size and won't fit these cases. Nothing in gerber/experiment/ is verified.

The case↻Replay

Pick the file by your printer's bed.

Print the body in white PLA, about 10 hours in all. On a Bambu printer, MakerWorld has it with tuned profiles, one click; the same four-plate project is in the repo.

Knobs↻Replay

The knobs in black, on their own.

Print knobs_20mm.stl, all four on one plate, as its own job in black PLA. It fits the BOM's 20 mm-shaft encoders; 15 mm shafts take knobs_15mm.stl.

White body, black knobs: that contrast is the Patternflow look.

256 mm only↻Replay

Glue the halves right away.

The 256 mm print splits the frame and the back panel into upper and lower halves. As soon as they're off the bed, glue each pair with CA glue and hold it with masking tape while it cures.

Backlit, a bonded seam shows a hairline gap. That's normal: putty, or baking soda with CA, fills it.

Let it cure while you solder. Printed the 330 mm one-piece body? Skip this.

Sockets↻Replay

Sockets first, on the printed side.

Set the two 1×22 sockets into U1's two rows of holes from the printed side, the one with all the lettering. Solder all 44 pins from the plain side, and keep both rows straight and flush.

The DevKit plugs in much later. It is never soldered.

J1 · J3 · J4↻Replay

Then the header and the two terminals.

J1, the 2×8 box header, goes beside the right-hand row of sockets, its notch toward them: the board prints hole! on that side.

The two screw terminals go in the bottom corners. Printed side up, encoders at the top: J4 on the left, its wire openings toward the bottom edge; J3 on the right, its openings the other way, up the board. J4 is the board's only power input.

Seat each one flush, then solder from the plain side: 16 joints for J1, two each for J3 and J4.

C11↻Replay

The capacitor, the right way round.

C11, the 1000 µF electrolytic, goes above J4. Its long lead is +: it goes in the hole marked + on the board, the one nearer the sockets. The stripe down the can marks −.

Solder it, then trim the leads.

Before you solder, check the long lead is in +. Reversed, the capacitor fails.

SW1–SW4↻Replay

The encoders last, from the other side.

Turn the board over. The four encoders go in from the plain side: their bodies sit there, and their pins come through to the printed side, which says it four times: ENCODER FACING OTHER SIDE.

Solder the pins on the printed side.

Check the side twice before you solder each one. On the wrong side the shafts can't reach the front of the case, and a soldered encoder is very hard to get back out.

The panel↻Replay

From the front, IN toward the top.

Glue cured? On the panel's back, find the connector marked HUB-75E IN. That end goes toward the top, the knob end: it's where the ribbon reaches J1 from.

Then seat the panel in the frame from the front, LEDs facing out, until its back rests on the twelve tabs inside the frame.

The fit is very tight, with almost no clearance. Work it in slowly: forced, the print can crack.

M4 screws↻Replay

Screw it in from behind.

Turn the case over. Each tab's hole sits over one of the panel's threaded holes: drive an M4 screw through the tab, into the panel. All 12 is the exact fit; 6, spread over the corners and the middle, hold it firmly.

Another panel's holes and screws may differ. That's what the for_other_panels print is for.

Power lead↻Replay

The lead goes in before the board.

Cut the USB cable, keeping the power-bank end. Strip only its red (+5 V) and black (GND) wires.

Thread the cut end through the small cable hole first, from the power-bank compartment up into the board bay, right below J4's place. Not the wide opening beside it, if your case has one.

Board still outside the case, clamp them into J4, red to the +5v side. Tug each wire.

J4 is the only way power gets in. Never through the DevKit's USB ports.

The board↻Replay

Set the board into its bay.

From behind, printed side toward you: the four encoder shafts go through the four holes in the front face. The sockets and the terminals face the open back, and the J4 lead follows the board in.

Nuts↻Replay

Lock it from the front.

On the front, screw the nut that came with each encoder onto its shaft and tighten it with pliers or a wrench. The nuts are what hold the board against the front face.

Keep the knobs off. They go on last, in 07.

Ribbon↻Replay

From J1 to the panel's IN.

Plug the panel's HUB75 ribbon into J1 on the board and into the panel's IN connector, the one at the top. The one at the bottom is OUT: it stays empty.

The plugs are keyed. Match each key to its header's notch.

J3↻Replay

The panel's power into J3.

Plug the panel's power cable into the 4-pin power header on the panel's back, just below the middle, and clamp its other end into J3: red to the side marked +5v, black to GND.

J3 is J4's mirror image. From this side J3's +5v is on the left and J4's on the right, so go by the +5v mark, not by left and right.

Reversed, J3 can destroy the panel. Look twice before it ever gets power.

Flash

Flash it in the Play guide.

The DevKit is flashed on its own, out of the board, from desktop Chrome or Edge. The Play guide's 01 Flash walks through it: the left USB port, BOOT and RST, your Wi-Fi on 2.4 GHz.

Seat it↻Replay

Seat the DevKit, power off.

Press the flashed DevKit straight into the two sockets, its USB-C ports toward the board's bottom edge, where the board says USB, and its antenna end toward the encoders.

All 44 pins in, neither row shifted by one. The power bank stays unplugged until the next step.

First light↻Replay

Plug in the power bank.

Slide the power bank into its compartment and plug in the J4 lead. Within a second or two the panel lights with Origin.

One pattern is right, not a failed install. The Basics pack goes on in the Play guide's 03.

Turn and click

Every knob, both ways.

Turn each of the four shafts: each one should visibly change the pattern. Then click each once: on Origin, a click zeroes that knob.

From the front: K2 and K1 on top, K4 and K3 below.

Hold

Hold each knob for a second.

Each opens its own screen. K4's is the pattern list: turn to browse, hold again to close it.

Power cycle

Off, on, no RST.

Unplug the power bank and plug it back in. Origin must come back by itself, without a press of RST. If it doesn't, issue #16 is about exactly that, with the fix.

Close the back↻Replay

Right edge in first, then click.

Hook the back panel's right edge in first, then press along the snap-fit until it clicks shut. Keep the cables clear of the edge.

Then slide the back cover, the small one, shut over the board bay.

Last↻Replay

Cover shut, knobs on.

Slide the power-bank cover shut. Then press the four black knobs onto the shafts, last of all.

That's a Patternflow, built.