Light-Up Minecraft Ore

What Was This For?

This was my gift for Chapman's DCI lab employee 2025 white elephant, and this year was some of the greatest gifts yet.

Some of the other gifts included a wooden "Catch-all" that also charges your phone, a fully CNC fork in the shape of a "4", a small replica of one of the rooms of the DCI lab, and many more (in the top photo)

But mine this year was a light up Ore from the popular game: Minecraft, which was also made entirely from scratch

Design

I first started by finding a pretty good model of this on printables. Then put it into Autodesk Fusion and made the footprints for the main PCB, the LED ring PCB, and re-worked the base so that it can hold these PCBs with the switch and button I also re-modeled the diffuser box so that I could make it out of acrylic, and then made the lower part that sits on the base so that it all snaps together with magnets

Manufacturing

The PCB's were made on an LPKF ProtoLaser off of a single sided FR4 1/2 oz copper sheet

After placing the LED's on the ring using solderpaste and an LPKF ProtoFlow, I used a breadboard to ensure everything was working properly off of an Arduino. I am also using a "Pull-down" resistor to ensure that my digital signal is reading true 1's as the button is pressed to reduce any static that might falsly trigger a button press

The outer shell was 3D printed in a grey/silver PLA on my Bambu Lab P1S

The Diffuser

The light coming from the LED's needs a diffuser so the light spreads relatively evenly. To do this I am laser cutting pieces of opaque acrylic I modeled in Fusion off of a Universal Laser Systems laser cutter. To glue them together I am using Weld-On 4 with the help of my boss Oscar who showed me this solvent.

Electronics and Code

Everything works off of this ATTiny85, which doesn't have a lot of storage nor RAM, but is perfect in making this circuit compact. I uploaded the code to this chip and compacted the circuit so it all fits inside the base

Finishing Touches and Magnets

The 3D-printed part I am holding in the photo fits right below the diffuser, allowing the ring light to sit inside the diffuser, resting the shell on top of the base. It then uses these magnets to ensure it snaps into the same perfect position every time

Final Product