ULTiM8x8 is the result of a collaboration over the last two years taking place across the globe: in North Carolina building on Maniacal Labs' Adam, and Dan's work on LED Drivers, and WyoLum's Anool (Mumbai), Kevin (Boston) and Justin (DC) work on LED arrays.

Together, we explored the issues confronted by large LED array design and tackled them one by one, through half a dozen board designs supported by multiple rounds of prototypes.

1. Electrical connections. We discovered building a large array of TiM boards, that routing power and data was a bit of a chore, and after several iterations (some including magnets) came up with a fantastic solution (using mounting posts) that works really well. The ease of use means you never have to finalize your array layout, but you can re-configure as needed.

2. Extensibility, It took a couple of tries, but the last iteration of the ULTiM8_bus board finally solves the problem of extending the array indefinitely.

3. Flexible processor support. Of course ULTiM8x8 is supported by Maniacal Labs' amazing AllPixel which drives any LED display from a USB port. The ULTiM8_bus also supports the array of Adafruit's Feather line of boards for stand-alone and wireless driving. And with the right connections, pretty much any Arduino-based platform can drive the APA102C-based ULTiM8x8.

We're really excited to get the ULTiM8x8 into the hands of creative types the world 'round. If you'd like to help us in that regard, please take a look at our The ULTiM8x8 CrowdSupply Page.

Some Demos of the ULTiM8x8 in action:

Dan with a quick intro/demo:

Adam showing off the wireless ULTiM8x8 Puzzle:

Justin running the "Official Maniacal Labs LED Array Test Pattern"...