I have been working on this thingy for the past few weeks. It consists of 20 hexagonal pieces, laser cut from clear perspex. Each piece has 33 APA102 Pixels, 660 all up. Its driven by an ESP8266. I would love to build a scaled up version with some interactive component! Its softmapped to a flat 2D space.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BEd39wWxDVq/
Quite gorgeous and cool design. That’s a lot of leds. 
How did you attach the hex pieces together?
@marmil thanks mate, for now they are connected with Sticky Tape Once i work out how to jam everything inside, including the battery, most likely hot glue.
Very cool build! I’ve been thinking about a similar build for a while. If you don’t mind me asking, did you create PCBs for the hexagonal faces? Or are they just hand-wired?
@Jason_Coon they were hard wired strips. Maybe for the larger build ill getbthe pcbs fabricated
FYI: They are amazingly tidy, but don’t expect PCBs to be a cheap way to mount LEDs, unless you’re panelising them yourself.
@Luminous_Elements Thanks for the tip. fabricating this particular project will only occur of someone funds it. Else its goign to sit on my desk as yet another prototype
That said, it depends on the look you’re going after. If you want black solder mask and ENIG plating, it’s going to be more expensive than the “classic” green board with HASL pads.
I just got some green/HASL hexagons done at seeedstudio, which are roughly the same size as yours (31 APA102 + ATMega + charger + boost) and got 5 of them for $25 – but it took well over a month between submitting the order and getting them in the mail, with little communication other than “we gave it to Singapore Post and they have it somewhere”.
By contrast, OSHPark made some very nice-looking purple/ENIG boards for the first prototype, and were very forthcoming about communicating the status of the order – but I paid $45 for just three of those boards.
And as far as designing the boards goes, all EDA packages suck. Find the one you hate the least and use that. This will take time.
@Luminous_Elements that doesn’t sound too expensive , considering how much time i put into building those panels. I might go that way. Thanks for your recoms