A better way to build a Seed Matrix?

tfischer said:
Did you see that the MN group buy has seed matrices?
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I wasn't going to, but because you asked, I looked in to it. They're now in my basket. 😂

I still have to figure out how I'm going to mount them. Height wise, they're a bit too tall but I think that'll actually be an advantage. I have to replace the rubber strip on the bottom of the door, so it'll give me a chance to look at adding a mounting bar at the bottom. Then I'll have to figure out a method to add a spring tensioner to the top.
 
I've been pretty happy with E6000 glue. It stays flexible, although less so when the temp goes below zero, but it seems to stay connected.
 
The door is old enough that it could be steel. I have multiple magnets but I can't currently find a single one. I've seen several people hold down the center with small magnets. This door doesn't have the usual cross braces but the hinges have about 1/8th inch hole inside that I can slide a rod inside. I should be able to wrap small bungee cords to the top/bottom of the matrix to these bars.

Then, I'll have to invent a tangless way to supply power to this. It will most likely will be wireless communication. I'll have to move up to an ESP32, though.
 
I briefly toyed with doing a garage door matrix this year but I just couldn't convince myself the cost was worth it. But like I've said, I'm just not much of a matrix person.

One unrelated thing I saw recently was a guy who installed shop lights on the back of his garage door. That way when the door is up, they will shine down and provide work light. I like that idea a lot, although if I do it I'll probably use dumb strip. I often work with my door closed in the summer at night just because having the door open does block several of my light fixtures, and it's much brighter with it closed. But sometimes it's much more pleasant with it open.

Anyway, the reason I even bring that up is that for power, he went and got the cheapest retractable reel extension cord from Amazon. Then he took it apart and removed the ratchet tang that held the cord in place, so the cord always wanted to retract. He then hung it so that when the door opened and closed, the cord would pull out and retract from the reel. A nice elegant solution for like $30. You could certainly do the same thing to power the matrix.

Let us know how that many pixels work over wireless though. I'm skeptical but would love to find out it actually worked well.
 
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