#Arduino led cubes code#

#Arduino led cubes code#

The code I used up til now was quite simple, I just took some code from the fast LED example library and changed a few numbers to run on this cube (the original code I used can be found here). This means the external power supply is not needed to run this code, you can just connect the 5V and GND of the strip to the Arduino. Since only one LED is powered at a time, this code can be powered through the Arduino. If something does not work, you can use a multimeter to figure out what is wrong. To test if all the LEDs work, I used the following code. Do not forget the connect the 5V of this layer with the 5V of part 2,4,6 and 8. Soldering these should be straight forward, just make sure to solder the Dout of one piece to the Din of the next first, since it is difficult to access afterward. Step 4: You are almost done, only part 9,10 and 11 need to be placed down. If the 5V pad of part 2 is in the way, you can just cut the corner of that part of diagonally to remove the solder pad.Ĭheck for shorts if you think you might have made a mistake. Now connect the V5 of part 1 and part 3, a short wire might be needed to do this.įinally, take a small piece of wire to connect the GND of parts 1,2 and 3 with each other.

This is a very tight corner and the wire that is underneath part 2 will need to make a sharp 180-degree turn to connect to the Dout of part 2 (this can be seen in image 4).

To solder this, it is very likely that you have to remove part 2 from the frame again to get some space. Now trim the wire connected to the Din of part 3 and solder it to the Dout of part 2. Remove the tape from part 2 and place it in its position, make sure the blue wire runs behind it. this needs to be a very short wire with a piece of insulation in the middle. Next, connect the Dout op part 1 with the Din of part 2, to do this, you might need to pull part 1 a bit of the frame. After soldering the wire remove the sticky tape cover of this part and place it down. First, a wire needs to be soldered to the Din of part 3, this wire needs to be 15 cm or longer and is the one that goes to the Dout of part 2 (blue line in image). Step 2: Now parts 2-3 will be added, the same process can be repeated for 4,5 and 6,7. Then remove the cover of the sticky tape and stick part 1 to the frame, don't worry, the tape does not stick very well, the parts will later be attached with glue. Run all the 5 wires that connect these pieces through the hole. Add 2 more wires to connect to the V5 and GND on part 12 to the Dout side, the wires for this side need to be at least 12cm longer since they need to run through the frame, the wires do not need to be soldered to part 12 yet. Next, connect 3 wires to part 1, make sure to connect them on the Din side. Step 1: Since we need sections of 12 LEDs you should start by cutting the LED strip in 12 pieces of 12 LEDs each. Make sure to pay attention to the direction of the LED strip pieces! Placing one piece incorrect can give you a lot of trouble. This is how I did this, if you have a better way, just use your own. I numbered the parts of the LED strip in the image above to explain everything better. I am going to divide this section into sub-steps to explain everything better. Note that the wires that power the outside square come in on the bottom layer and go through the frame (behind a part of the LED strip) to the top layer. The middle 4 pieces get their 5V from the outside square and their GND from the center square. In the sketch, you can see that there are three parts, the center square, the outside square, and the middle 4 pieces that are in between the two squares. In the parts where the green line runs next to a piece of LED strip, it means that it is running underneath the strip (The frame has space for these wires). If you follow the green line you can see the order in which the strip sections of 12 LEDs are connected with each other (they are numbered in order on the image). The other wire that goes in is the Data line, this is the line that sends data to all LEDs to specify the color of them. This is not just powering the strip on two ends, this is actually necessary to eliminate the need for more complex solder joints.

Two pairs of 5V and GND, one to power the beginning of the LED strip (on the bottom layer) and one to power the end (on the top layer). The drawing above (which represents the cube) should give you an idea of how everything is soldered.ĥ Wires go through the hole into the cube. It is important to understand how the wires need to be soldered before actually soldering them since there is not a lot of space to work with.