Intro

This is my first ‘project’ and it’s a medium difficulty project that requires some soldering skills and a computer to program the associated microcontroller. Soldering is not too difficult and there are plenty of tutorials to help with that. The skills that you will learn on this project will open the door to many more fun projects so it’s worth it to learn if you don’t already have this knowledge. With that out of the way let’s get started!

Printing

I decided to print the stones with ‘fuzzy’ just because it makes it look more organic but you might decide to disable that to be able to print faster if you like. I used black pla and then painted with a combination of gold and silver. Paint all of the parts first before assembly/wiring. I used regular super glue for assembly. For the ‘open’ part, no fuzzy with transparent pla for best effect.

Wiring

Use the diagram for wire routing. If you haven’t worked with individually addressable LEDs before, there is a data in/data out flow that is critical to follow! You can pre-cut the wire: 3 lengths of 3 wire at 30 cm/12 inches, 2 lengths of 3 wire at 22 cm/8.5 inches. The shorter wires are for the two inter most stones. One of the longer lengths you will just split up into the three individual wires and use that for the data out routing(be sure to mark it with a black sharpie or something so you know which one it is and don’t get them confused with the other wires).

Strip the wires that connect to the LEDs as short as possible (2mm/ 1/16”) and ‘tin’ them with solder. This means you simply melt some solder onto it so it has a small blob on there. Cut the LEDs at the center of the solder pads and place them on top of the stones with the orientation for data in(DI) facing the hole where the wires will come through. Now ‘tin’ the pads. (These are WS2812B 100/m pitch. Any larger pitch and you won’t be able to fit it on the top of the stones!) Now you can route the wires through the stones and solder them to the LEDs. See picture. You may need to do some creative bending(training) of the wires first to make it easier as space gets pretty tight here. Make sure to color code everything properly. Red is 5v+, data is green, ground is white. The data out on the other side is going to be whatever color you choose just as long as you mark it with a sharpie or something so you don’t get that mixed up. Only three of the stones will have data out as the last one does not require it.

After completing that you can mount the stones on the base. Now flip it over. Install the momentary switch and solder an 80 mm/3 inch wire to each tab. I had to bend the tabs a little bit to get it to fit in the bottom. Strip all of the white ground wires and any ONE of the momentary switch wires about 10 mm/ 3/8” and twist them all together and solder them. Do the same with all of the red 5v+ wires. For the data wires, connect each one in the correct flow according to the diagram. This part is critical to follow! Now protect all of the bare wires with electrical tape or shrink tubing or whatever you like. You want to make sure those bare areas do not touch each other.

WLED flashing

‘Flash’ the microcontroller with WLED firmware. Simply plug it into your computer and go to [https://install.wled.me/](https://install.wled.me/) and click install and select the appropriate port that your microcontroller is plugged into. If you need help with this you can always go to the knowledge base on that website for further instructions and/or their WLED discord. Super helpful folks there. Enter in your Wi-Fi credentials after flashing the unit and now you will have access to the user interface. Click Config tab then click Security & Updates. Scroll to Restore presets and enter this [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1INN9BoDogMWYNWJGUCJQLkj4g7L08ZFO/view?usp=drive_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1INN9BoDogMWYNWJGUCJQLkj4g7L08ZFO/view?usp=drive_link) then click save. Right below under restore config enter this cfg file [https://drive.google.com/file/d/16kHIZP6QM4-LLpanzOClnPstExO0THfq/view?usp=drive_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/16kHIZP6QM4-LLpanzOClnPstExO0THfq/view?usp=drive_link) The controller will disconnect from your network and you'll need to access it through your phone wifi now. Look for WLED-AP in your wifi settings then enter default password wled1234. It may take a minute to log in. Then re-enter your wifi credentials again and save. You can now access it again on your network and the WLED-Native app. Button and presets are preconfigured but feel free to have fun with other cool effects!

Now it’s time to connect the wires to the microcontroller. You will need two more lengths of wire(50 mm/2 inches)- ground(white) and 5v+ (red). Strip one side 10 mm/ 3/8” and the other short, about 2mm/ 1/16”. Tin both ends. Solder the longer end to the appropriate cluster of ground/5v+ wires. Very carefully tin the 5v, gnd, 2, 10 pins of the microcontroller. All of the wire connections would be on the ‘top’ of the controller which is the same side as the little built-in buttons and red antenna. Now solder the red to the 5V pin, white to the GND pin, green to the 2 pin, and the other momentary switch wire to the 10 pin.

Slide the microcontroller in the slot on the base and snap it together. Before gluing that part I would recommend plugging it in to make sure everything is functioning properly. Once confirmed you can glue it. Also glue the button part on the momentary switch. Do not add too much glue here or you will destroy the switch and it will be stuck closed(I found this out the hard way). Assemble the transparent 'open' components to the top of the stones and you’re done! Hopefully Zurg does not come looking for you.

Parts List

ESP32 C3 controller- [https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805781327184.html](https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805781327184.html)

WS2812B LED strip(select 100mm IP30)- [https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251801850504415.html](https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251801850504415.html)

Push Button- [https://a.co/d/dKl0fs3](https://a.co/d/dKl0fs3)

3Pin 22AWG LED wire(5m)- [https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801728933470.html](https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256801728933470.html)