Hey there!

I had some LED dot matrices (MAX72xx) sitting around for 4 years and decided to build something useful with them.
This device shows you the current price of Bitcoin in USD and Euro with some typical bitcoin/crypto vocabulary inbetween :P

This project is intended for people with some prior knowledge in working with electronics and perhaps some coding knowledge! You most certainly need to use a soldering iron too. Therefore it needs you to use some of your own brain juice!

I will not create a more in depth tutorial for it. Neither will I help with coding.

I used an nodemcu ESP8266 microcontroller and 8x MAX72XX led matrix (2x 4 Matrices in series).

Dimensions of the matrices I used:
thickness: approx 16mm
width: approx 32mm
length: 260mm (remember, 2 x 4 matrices modules in series, soldered together with matching gaps)

https://shorturl.at/X0156 2x 4 MAX72XX led matrix
https://shorturl.at/enxE8 1x ESP8266 controller board

Not affiliated in any way. Short URLS to Aliexpress.

The code is also available, so feel free to modify it!
https://github.com/oroshikirin11/BitcoinTickerV1/blob/main/Code

Some instructions:

Electronics/Code:
- Intended to be used with Arduino IDE.
- Import the necessary boards and select it. (ESP-12E for me)
- Install the CH340 Driver.
- Download the libraries that are defined. ("ESP8266WiFi", "MD_Parola", "MD_MAX72xx" and “SPI”)
- Copy and paste the code to you Arduino project.
- Enter your Wifi data ssid and password in the corresponding constants. (yes, replace the placeholders inside the “ ”)
- Wire everything up accordingly or change up the pin layout. (In my case: D0 = 16 = DATA | D1 = 5 = CS | D2 = 4 = CLK)
- Plug in the board via USB to your computer and select the correct COM port.
- Compile and upload the code to the board!
- You should be running! :)

If you have no idea what all of this is, watch videos on this topic.

Printing:
The presliced files and settings are validated. Try not to move any of the objects or else things can get messed up!
Open the project, in the Objects section match the colours to your AMS layout and print!
Don't forget, the orange lines are made with painting in slicer!
Hint: With an textured PEI sheet the surface will be extra good looking!

Print time approx. 4h 30min

Maybe you need to do some small cleanup + some sanding in order for the parts to fit together smoothly enough.
I recommend testing that without anything built into the case first.
Bridges should print okay, if not the ones in the matrix case also require cleanup so the matrix slides in better.
Since it is up to you which microcontroller you end up using you also need to look yourself on how you fixate the controller in the casing, I used a load of hot glue :)

Feel free to remix this project!
Enjoy tinkering!