Smart gaming dice with LEDs, Bluetooth, wireless charging #Teardown #OpenSource @tanurai @pixels_dice @hackadayio

On New Year’s Day, Pixels introduced their signature dice. Features include:

• Rull RGB LEDs on each die face
• Orientation sensing
• Customization
• Wireless charging
• Bluetooth connectivity

Intrepid Maker Tanya Fish decided to look and see how they did that.

She posts the project’s Hackaday.io site where Jean Simonet details what’s inside (i.e. no dice were harmed in this teardown). What makes things happen? Some tiny but sophisticated gear:

1	×	Linear Battery Charger Controller Li-Ion/Li-Pol 15mA to 500mA 4.2V
1	×	Power Distribution Switch
1	×	Lipo Battery, 60mAh
1	×	7uH wireless charging coil
1	×	Omnipolar Hall Effect Sensor,
1	×	Crystal 32MHz ±15ppm 8pF
20	×	APA102 2020RGB LED 2mm x 2mm (“DotStar LEDs”)
1	×	Full bridge rectifier – 200mA 80V
1	×	nRF52810 Bluetooth microcontroller
1	×	LDO Regulator, 200mA, 5 V
1	×	3 Axis Accelerometer
1	×	2.5V to 5.5V Synchronous Step Down Single-Out 0.6V to 5.5V

Quite smart for a small 20 sided package, achieved through flexible PCB folding and resin casting – see the video below.

You can get the details on the project website (Kickstarter coming soon) and Hackaday.io.