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Here’s the bare circuit

… goes into a little 3D printed form

I guess I’m just going to work my way through then.

Lots of people have asked, so: processor is a STM32F030F4P6 (Cortex M0, 16K flash, 4K ram), screen is a QT1306P82 (0.42" OLED).

I haven't shared the schematic because it contains an error; you need to rework the boards to route a spare gpio to the screen. This involves drilling a 0.3mm hole through one of the pads, making a break in the ground plane, and soldering a little piece of wire through.

Putting together another brick. These battery contacts are the hardest part of the build.

While that one cures, I added the trench run and got capacitive touch working in the studs.

The new one is more opaque and a closer match to Lego Blue. I also painted the edges of the screen with black lacquer, which got rid of the glowing surround. It’s a very fiddly construction. If I’m going to make more, I need to work on tooling.

@ancientjames
This is all cool and charming and :ablobsmilehappy:

@ancientjames This is just amazing. I am assuming that the lower brick is your work. Eager to see more!

@ancientjames
I can't even imagine soldering components that small, let alone drilling a microscopic hole in a microscopic pad to pass a microscopic wire! 😯 Nice job!

@ancientjames I do this professionally and am plenty impressed at drilling 0.3mm holes for a kludge. The result is beautiful.

@smellsofbikes It was almost worth getting it wrong just for the satisfaction of fixing it.

@ancientjames I love a satisfying pcb save with a righteous board mod. I'm the person who drills and mills mods on our automated test boards at work and it's a superhero feeling to make a $20k board start functioning.
(TIL when you lay out a big board do a soldermask cutout and put copper numbers on each layer so you can hold it up to a light and see if the Fab house stack up matches what you designed as sometimes they swap for impedance matching and that's a big hassle for hitting midlayers)

@ancientjames if you ever found away to mass produce these I would buy a half dozen they are amazing!

@ancientjames I realise this isn't news to you, but these are just amazing! 😁

@ancientjames may I ask how you made the contacts on the bottom of the brick? Are they simply wire that presses against the contacts in the side of the studs?

@marble yes, it’s an edge connector.

@ancientjames Thanks for sharing - this is such a cool project!

@ancientjames This is so amazing! 🤯
Submit this video to Lego if you are looking for a job : )

@ancientjames this is the kind of stuff that if someone asked me if it was possible I'd tell them no. Awesome work.

@ancientjames @foosel omg I thought you were projecting the display somehow and I was impressed then! This is beyond!

@ancientjames 🤩 That's absolutely awsome! Great idea and perfectly executed. 💯

And now the question that probably everybody is having on their mind: What display is that and where to get it?

@hacked_works Thank you! It uses this display: aliexpress.com/item/1005001676 - I use a bunch of them in a keyboard that apparently I haven't been posting about on Mastodon

@hacked_works It's worth noting that it's a better display than that video makes it look - I deliberately drop the resolution to make it match the original Lego brick.

@ancientjames I didn't know what to expect when I launched this video, but amazing result ! You have brilliantly solved the weakness of the Lego control screens 😄

@ancientjames Raspberry Pi next generation??? 😂

@ancientjames Here's hoping Lego's insane trademark/design patent/whatever enforcement team doesn't start coming after you...

@ancientjames That's awesome but i don't think it's allowed to use the LEGO logo, which can be clearly seen at the end of the video.

@n2m3e @ancientjames for personal use it should be no problem. You can paint your own Mona Lisa if you want.

@Bobo_PK @n2m3e @ancientjames AFAICT, the Mona Lisa image is in public domain. It's the physical canvas and pigments that are property of somebody.

@ancientjames Very nice work but can it run Doom ?

@ancientjames mastodon is full of tech people who know what's going on here. I'm not one of these people and this is pure fucking magic to me!!!! I would have lost my tiny little marbles if I saw this as a kid

@ancientjames great! i am also always fascinated by the clear ux of the original brick :)

@ancientjames

You are a GOD! Not even being sarcastic. Awesome!