Creating an LED Cube: A Step-by-Step Guide

Let's bring this project to an end after I was done creating a couple of 2.5 cm pieces from the Caro wire. I continued by shortening the data out of the far left LED and the data in of the following right LED, then I sold out my small wire piece between those two and repeated the same procedure for the rest of the top LEDs. At this point, it is important to make sure that the bottom and top LEDs are lined properly in the X and Y axis if that is not the case, the bridge wire between the LEDs must be shortened even further until all of the LEDs create one straight line with the car wire and the LED underneath them.

Once everything looked fine, I repeated the data pin connection procedure for the five LEDs at the base plate afterwards. I marked the 4.1, 7.9, and 11.7 CM spots on the carbon wires this is where we need to solder the remaining 15 LEDs of the First wall and always make sure that the lower Edge is in the correct position with the help of a ruler. Once that is done, we can again shorten the inner data pins pre-tin those and solder a piece of wire between all of them.

The first segment is complete, and it is also a good idea to test the LEDs regularly with a 5V power source. Now we can begin the construction of the second wall. The only difference is that the flat side of the LEDs faces the opposite direction than the LEDs of the First wall this way we can easily connect the data pins together in a snake pattern later on without the need of any construction troubles.

Aside from this orientation shift, nothing else changes for the build of this Cube segment before I started the third wall. I also tested the LEDs with the help of a data signal just to make sure that everything still works fine now for the third segment you want to flip the orientation of the LEDs again this way they face the same way as they do in the First wall.

I think you should get the principle by now and just like that I successfully created the third, fourth, and fifth segment of my LED cube but as you can see the individual walls are still pretty loose. We can fix this by connecting the five data outs of each wall to the five data ins of the next wall and always use a brackets to make sure that they're all aligned properly.

Afterwards, I removed my hot glue seal and flipped the cube upside down then I bent the power copper wires and used a 0.8 mm drill bits to create five holes near the First Data in pins and four holes next to the last data out pins. I inserted silver carer wire into the holes of the data in LEDs and Sol them to each layer's First Data in pin.

The same procedure applies to the four holes for the data out but obviously you don't need to sort a wire to the very last LED afterwards, I shortened the power wires and solder out a fitting Barrel connector to 1.5 s mm wire plugged it in and secured the wire with the help of the screw.

One last advice though the LEDs like to freak out a bit with 5 volts so make sure you adjust the voltage to around 5.5 volts with that being said all there's left to do is opening an example animation and changing the code a bit before finally uploading it.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enlet's bring this project to an end after I was done creating a couple of 2.5 cm pieces from the Caro wire I continued by shortening the data out of the far left LED and the data in of the following right LED then I sold out my small wire piece between those two and repeated the same procedure for the rest of the top LEDs at this point it is important to make sure that the bottom and top LEDs are line properly in the X and Y AIS if that is not the case the bridge wire between the LEDs must be shortened even further until all of the LEDs create one straight line with the car wire and the LED underneath them once everything looked fine I repeated the data pin connection procedure for the five LEDs at the base plate afterwards I marked the 4.1 7.9 and 11.7 CM spots on the carbo wires this is where we need to solder the remaining 15 LEDs of the First wall and always make sure that the lower Edge is in the correct position with the help of a ruler once that is done we can again shorten the inner data pins pre-tin those and solder a piece of wire between all of them and the first of five segments is complete and it is also a good idea to test the LEDs regularly with a 5V power source now we can begin the construction of the second wall the only difference is that the flat side of the LEDs fa the opposite direction than the LEDs of the First wall this way we can easily connect the data pins together in a snake pattern later on without the need of any construction troubles but aside from this orientation shift shft of the LEDs nothing else changes for the build of this Cube segment before I started the third wall I also tested the LEDs with the help of a data signal just to make sure that everything still works fine now for the third segment you want to flip the orientation of the LEDs again this way they face the same way as they do in the First wall I think you should get the principle by now and just like that I successfully created the third fourth and fifth segment of my LED cube but as you can see the individual walls are still pretty loose we can fix this by connecting the five data outs of each wall to the five data ins of the next wall and always use a brackets to make sure that they're all aligned properly afterwards I removed my hot glue seal and fli the cube upside down then I bent the power copper wires and used a 0.8 mm drill bits to create five holes near the First Data in pins and four holes next to the last data out pins I inserted silver carer wire into the holes of the data in LEDs and Sol them to each layer's First Data in pin the same procedure applies to the four holes for the data out but obviously you don't need to sort a wire to the very last LED afterwards I shortened the power wires and solded four wires to the layers dat are out those need to be connected to the layer data in in a way that the first layer's data out connects to the second layer data in and so on this only leaves the First Data in behind which only receives a 150 ohm resist for now now we can move over to the power wireing by using 0.75 s mm solid wire to connect each VCC and ground wire to each other but don't forget that the orientation of the second and fourth wall is swapped around every now and then it is also a good idea to check for shorts with the continuity function of your multimeter and most importantly make sure that there's a horizontal and vertical connection line for your power wiring if not funky looking data corruption can be the consequence once the solar job was done I tested the cube which still acted strange the reason is that even though I tried to prevent this one LED was damaged after replacing it the cube finally worked like a charm and I celebrated this by gluing the data wire in place and soldering a th wire to the 150 Ohm resistor and a 1.5 squ mm power wire to the Joint VCC and ground pin then I created fitting female headers and a piece of stripboard for my aino Nano sold out those headers in place and interrupted the copper traces between them afterwards I positioned three terminal blocks next to 5 volt ground a z and D2 and soldered those to the board to power this construction I used my 1.5 s mm wire again and solder the other end in parallel to the power wi ring of the cube itself then the data wire gets secured to the D2 terminal block and we can start the case wiring by soldering a wire to the tip pin of the DC jack the other end of this wire then connects to one side of the main switch and before joining the case and Cube I solar three thin wires to the potentiometer and secured it in its place all that is left to do is solding the ground wire of the cube directly to the DC jack and the VCC wire to the other side of the switch the potentiometer middle wire gets secured to the a z pin while the other two wires connect to to 5 volts and ground and the project is done well almost for supplying power I went with this 5V 12 amp power supply because the cube can draw up to 6.7 amps in the worst case I just sold out a fitting Barrel connector to 1.5 s mm wire plugged it in and secured the wire with the help of the screw tnal one last advice though the LEDs like to freak out a bit with 5 vol volts so make sure you adjust the voltage to around 5.5 volts with that being said all there's left to do is opening an example animation and changing the code a bit before finally uploading it I hope you like this project if so don't forget to like share and subscribe let me know if you want a quick video on how to program custom animations stay creative and I will see you next time