Background
The first version of this mask was a test — could you tile enough LEDs across a face shape to make something interesting? The answer was yes, but the execution left room for improvement. Version 2.0 is the proper build: 16 custom PCB panels, 2,960 SK6805 addressable LEDs, and enough resolution to actually put meaningful imagery on your face.
Start With the Template
Before anything electronic, you 3D print a mask template and test the fit. This isn't optional. The final assembly is rigid — all those panels soldered together don't flex. If the geometry doesn't match your face, wearing it will put stress on every joint every time you put it on, and solder joints will start cracking. Get the fit right first, then build around it.
The PCBs
The panels are custom boards, not off-the-shelf LED matrices. Two large boards cover the left and right halves of the face. Each one gets a solder paste stencil laid down before any components go on — the boards are large enough that doing this without a stencil would be a nightmare. Even with the stencil it's nerve-wracking. One slip and you're bridging pads across a huge surface area.
LEDs go on next. The component is the SK6805 — a 1.5mm addressable RGB LED in a tiny package. There are 2,960 of them. I placed a portion by hand. I don't recommend it. It will take hours, and it's the kind of work that makes you genuinely reconsider your life choices around the fourth hundred unit. If you're replicating this, price out a pick-and-place run. The cost is worth it.
After placement, reflow in a toaster oven. A cheap one works fine — I used a $20 unit and it did the job.
Test Before You Commit
Test every panel individually before cutting anything apart or soldering panels together. Connect 5V to the power and ground pads on the panel edge, send a data signal to the pad on the back, and verify the whole thing lights up. Finding a dead LED or a bad joint at this stage is annoying. Finding it after assembly is a project-ending problem.
Singulation
The panels are cut from the larger boards. Careful cuts to avoid nicking traces near the edges. The mouse bites — the small perforated bridges that hold panels to the panel sheet during fabrication — get cleaned up with a belt grinder. The grinder is fast and unforgiving; it will remove more material than you intended if you're not paying attention. Light passes, check often.
Assembly
This is the hardest part. The 3D-printed template becomes a jig — panels get positioned against it at the correct angles to conform to a face, then soldered together using short wire bridges at the joints. Masking tape holds panels in position while you work. There's no good way to clamp curved geometry, so tape and patience are the tools here.
After the full assembly is joined, check for shorts. I found several. That's normal given the density of the build and the number of solder joints involved. Trace them, fix them, move on.
Power and Control
Power runs in on 18 AWG wire. With 2,960 LEDs drawing current simultaneously at full brightness, anything lighter will drop voltage noticeably across the panel chain and you'll see colour shift toward the far end. Go heavier than you think you need.
For the controller, two options:
Pixelblaze is the easier path — plug in, open a browser, write patterns in a JavaScript-like editor. Great for animations, reactive patterns, audio response. Gets you to something impressive fast.
Raspberry Pi is the more capable path. You can feed it video, run face detection, map camera input onto the LED grid in real time. The ceiling is much higher but the setup is more involved.
Result
It works. You can wear it, it conforms to a face, and you can put whatever you want on it — animations, faces, text, patterns. The resolution isn't high by display standards but it's high enough that the effect reads clearly in person and on camera.
The main thing I'd do differently is invest more time in the power distribution layout. Running power injection from multiple points along the panel chain rather than just one end would reduce voltage sag and make brightness more uniform across the whole display.